« A coherent rehabilitation, of its time and that will last a long time: this is the global approach we have taken on this project.
GRAHAM will be a place where the existing building’s DNA will be released, making way for a dialogue between its new uses, fully lit walkways, rich and peaceful paths, and lush and fertile gardens.
The project will restore legibility to the qualities of what used to be a Post and Telecommunications building while improving it, based on the concept of useful design: free, high floors, large-scale joinery allowing light to penetrate right up to the staircases, and the common thread of copper to affirm the place’s identity ».
Understanding the past to better intervene on the existing.The building was designed in 1925 by Charles Giroud, architect for the Post and Telephone Administration, to house the Vaugirard Telephone House in a refined industrial Art Deco style.
The construction system commonly used is a primary structure entirely in reinforced concrete (posts and beams) with brick-filled facade walls. All the floors were reinforced concrete with hidden joists, with double-high beams to facilitate the passage of cables and rested on reinforced concrete columns. In 1961, the architect Albert Grégoire designed an extension positioned in the center of the roof, which was built on the fifth floor, set back from the street and courtyard façades, with a two-slope roof giving access to a large terrace, in a metal structure (metal posts and trusses).
The building’s very high architectural quality clearly guides all the interventions that have been designed.
The urgent need to reduce energy consumption and to combat urban heat islands has led us to think about the project in terms of reducing all possible impacts.
An unique and customized projectThe former car entrance of the porch will be transformed into the main entrance for pedestrians and soft mobility – thus creating a real transition space between the street and the building.
On the ground floor, the contemporary gallery now provides access to the garden and the building. The purity of the gallery's volume, with its 6-metre-high glass façade, forms a totally open element of transition and sharing. In this way, the dialogue between the existing and a contemporary glazed element reveals the garden, in the open ground, which becomes the site’s green lung.
Circulation, a key element of fluidity and connectionsThe landings will all have daylight, facing the garden, and will allow physical movement as well as exchanges and conviviality.
A monumental staircase magnifies all the circulation between the reception and the meeting areas and the work areas.
The project will restore the original legibility of the office floors: free and modular in the spirit of the 1925 project. All the partitions will be removed to leave the concrete beams and posts visible. The high ceilings will be free of any installations. The interior spaces on the fifth floor will have direct access to the terraces. The existing windows will be transformed into full-height bay windows to promote spatial and visual permeability between the interior and exterior, while preserving the original framework.
Vera Matovic
architect DPLG and chairperson of B. architecture.
