A stone’s throw from the Arc de Triomphe, 32 Guersant houses 13,600m2 of next-generation offices. An ambitious and resolutely contemporary project, the 1960s building has been entirely redesigned to free itself from the contours of traditional offices, behind an elegant glass and aluminum facade.

The facades alternate spandrel panels in bronze-anodized aluminum and in glass, with opening windows above spandrel panels or full-height. In order to preserve the ceiling height, ventilation is provided by an alternating airflow system (LTG) placed behind the spandrel panels, which takes air through the facade via a discretely integrated single entrance and exit point. The facade thereby combines the technical requirements of mechanized ventilation with a direct relationship between users and their surroundings by means of opening windows.

Set within a mixed environment of offices and residential units, the building’s other problem was its massing, too large for the scale of the neighborhood. The facade has been designed so as to maintain the building’s strong identity, while preserving a level of privacy by the addition of vertical aluminum fins distributed across the facade. The anodized aluminum is tinted bronze to unify all the facades and to give voice to the quality of the materials.

Designed like a hotel lobby, the ground floor is open to the outside in order to connect the building and its occupants with the street, re-establishing links with the city and the public space in a way that is quite unprecedented for Paris.