Boulogne-Billancourt, France
The proposed headquarters for the Régie Nationale des Usines Renault is located on a triangular site at Point du Jour just outside Paris city limits on the west bank of the Seine. Incorporating a group of office buildings built in the 1960s, the master plan takes its cues from the geometry of the site as well as from its orientation to the city of Paris. The program was especially challenging. Besides requiring an appropriate public image for a company dedicated to the development of advanced technology, it emphasized the provision of an environment for the center’s fourteen hundred employees that would assure the highest quality of life in the workplace. Too often the design of office buildings is little more than an attempt to maximize square footage or to erect a prestige-conferring object in a landscape of corporate one-upmanship. In this case, the standard of amenity specified – including an office with a window for every worker, an art gallery, employee gymnasium, full service restaurant, and outdoor park space – as well as a flexible office layout that would promote communication between different levels of the company hierarchy, encouraged a search for an innovative solution.
Facing Paris across the dividing line of the Boulevard Périphérique on one side and the existing Renault office blocks on the other. the new administrative building has two major façades – a ceremonial public one directed to the community and city, and a private one directed to the company itself. Two corresponding geometries are used as ordering devices. The private facade, facing the existing buildings and creating an internal enclave within them, responds to and complements the older buildings, and its orientation and scale as well as the height of the complex as a whole are generated by these buildings’ orthogonal grid and plan dimensions. The public facade is rotated twenty-four degrees from this grid; its geometry is derived from the street grid of Paris across the boulevard and form the perpendicular bank of the Seine, which the south façade of the building, along the Quai du Pont du Jour, parallels.
Symbolically the existence of the two “fronts” emphasizes the dual corporate aspect, public and private, while formally two orientations and two geometries fuse to create a rich architectonic vocabulary. The distinction between public and private realms permeates every part of the complex. It is articulated in plan in the contrast between rectangular, cellular, or repetitive spaces, which contain offices and rooms of defined function, and more free-form, freely planned spaces, containing more free-form, freely planned spaces, containing social, recreational and eating areas, lobbies and galleries, and the like. It is the public facade that governs the grid of the more rigidly defined system, while the grid of the facade-oriented to the internal domain allows for freer composition. The eight-story building is organized vertically in a fairly hierarchical way: public spaces are concentrated at ground level, general offices are distributed throughout the upper stories, and the top floor is reserved for executive office suites.
The ceremonial public entry faces Paris and is reached by a private roadway whose principle access is off the Quai du Point Jour. The main entry space is a sky lit atrium with exhibition, information, and waiting areas. From here one gets glimpses both horizontally and vertically of the inner world of the corporation. To the right of this lobby, near an enclosed passageway leading to the older buildings, is the full-service restaurant, again freely defined and with its own internal courtyard. Next to the restaurant and sharing the kitchen and services in between is a cafeteria, which turns the corner of the site and opens out onto a formal landscaped garden and toward the site for a future automotive museum-showroom. The other public spaces on the ground level are located to the left of the lobby, but separated from the front wall of offices by two courtyards. They are related to the restaurant facilities by a setback alignment in plan and to the existing buildings behind by their orientation and grid. These spaces, which like the other social spaces lend themselves to free plan and curvilinear elevation treatment, balance the rectilinear articulation of the office spaces across the courtyards. Their functions include large conference rooms and a Research, Art and Industry Gallery where Renault personnel or the invited public can view changing exhibitions of art and science.
The office space, comprising the bulk of the program, is designed to allow every employee maximum natural light and view, and to respond to the primary goals established by the program: a flexible layout, work space that is both functional and comfortable, and an inter-floor arrangement that encourages communication among employees. The typical office floor is organized as a “life unit” of fifty people, a working group size that corresponds to the company’s lateral structure. Each life unit is disposed around one of the large exterior courtyards – there are three within the complex – and may function either as a suite of offices or as an open office landscape. From every office space there is a view either out to the city or into a courtyard, and no office is smaller than three meters by five meters.
雷诺汽车公司总部位于巴黎市郊塞纳河西岸Point du Jour大道的一块三角形基地上。总部已有一批建于20世纪60年代的办公楼，建筑设计遵循了基地本身的几何结构和朝向。在此基础上，总部进行了一番改造和扩建；其宗旨除了展示公司致力于从事技术开发的公共形象外，还要为400多名员工营造高品质的办公环境，并促进员工之间的交流与互动。规划的内容包括：每间办公室有一扇窗户，大楼中有画廊、健身俱乐部、餐厅，户外有停车场。面朝巴黎市区，穿过环城大道和原建筑，新建的行政楼坐落于此，其南面沿着Pointdu Jour大道与塞纳河平行。新建筑的朝向、比例和高度都参考了原建筑的直角格局和设计规模。新建筑有两个立面：一个立面向公众开放，通往社区和城市，与原建筑的直角格局成24°角；另一个立面直达公司内部，与原建筑构成了一块封闭的区域。两个几何结构相互呼应。
新建筑的这两个立面强调了公共区和私密区的功能分布，它们的朝向和几何结构丰富了建筑表达。在平面构图中，矩形区域、单元和重复空间均有所展现，包括办公室、大堂、画廊、餐厅、娱乐区等。面向公众的一面“掌管”着严格界定的部分，对内的一面则“掌管”着更为自由的部分。八层高的建筑中，功能分区是垂直分布的。公共区在第一层的中心，上层是办公室，顶层是主管人员的办公套间。公共入口面朝巴黎市区，穿过Point du Jour大道后再走过一条小径即可到达。主入口区是一个装有天窗的中庭，包括展览区、信息发布区和等候区，在这里可俯瞰公司的全貌。大堂右边，在通往原有建筑封闭通道的旁边，是自带庭院的餐厅。餐厅的对面是未来汽车模型的专用展览区。其他公共空间(包括大型会议室、研究室、画廊）位于大堂左边，即餐厅的后移位置，与前侧的办公室相隔两个庭院。在这里，员工经常被邀请参观艺术展品并进行一些粗浅的研究。办公楼占据了基地的很大一部分，拥有开阔的景观视野。灵活的平面组合、舒适且功能完备的办公空间促进了员工之间的交流和互动。每个楼层配置了可容纳50名员工的多间办公室，与建筑的横向架构一致；它们围绕着一个大型户外庭院，有的作为封闭的套间，有的则作为开放的交谈区。每间办公室的面积不小于15平方米，坐拥近处清新宜人的院景和远处美丽的城市风景。
