Photo credits © Roland Halbe
Between the two rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, the new pavilion takes in account the aerial steel structures. Suspended on huge double crossing beams on the fourth floor over three strong pylons in the atrium, the two parallelepiped volumes of the building are shifted at 86°. The internal large atrium is scenographying the movements through the whole building. Seen from underneath when passing by along the river, under the cantilever of 28 meters long of the four floors above, the building is discovered through a glass ceiling.
The four facades are the result of the meeting of the original artwork of Felice Varini with the architecture of Odile Decq: it represents in the four directions the landscape erased by the presence of the building. These black and white photos play an ambiguous game between opacity, representation and transparency.
The basic principle that has guided the interior design is the client’s demand for total transparency. The need for meeting rooms and some enclosed of ce spaces was the opportunity to develop rooms made of full glass walls. They are punctuating the open space floors around the atrium, creating subdivision inside a continuous space. On outer floor angles are dispatched the main meeting rooms.
The second important feature is the singular red objects in space: the cafeterias on the 1st and 3rd floor; the Chef’s kitchen on the 4th; the bar on the roof top… These contribute to social life inside the working space, in favour of informal encounters or meetings, such as in the specific open bench shaped meeting areas on each floor, at the angles of the atrium.
The dominant colour for the interior design is red. Red happens to be the colour of the GL Events company logo. We adapted it on the singular objects, on the cupboards and the mechanical archives, in contrast with the sober black carpet and chairs. Tabletops remained white due to working comfort. The people working now inside Pavillon 8 consider this environment being energizing and dynamic.