Built in 1866 by the architect Jean Séguela, listed in the region’s cultural heritage inventory, the building forms a triangular island with an interior garden of nearly 400 m² at its heart.
The architectural approach was guided by its DNA: to offer a new use while preserving the identity and soul of the building. Here, the facades and the dome, the woodwork and the remarkable elements, decorations, and modenatures were enhanced, combined with the use of contemporary, raw and natural materials. The inner courtyard of the building – previously a parking space – has become an island of freshness in the city, a lush garden with multiple species. The sensation of a permanent “inside-outside” is created by the omnipresence of the vegetation right up to the workplaces.
The interior floors were made of cast linoleum, a first in France, thanks to a process based on bio resins. The heating is provided by a heating-cooling floor that provides a soothing well-being to occupants. Bio-sourced materials in the ceilings and organic paints on the interior walls complete the commitment to the environment that the agency prescribes to its clients and that it wanted to experiment itself.
Equipped with last technology, the building also houses the Cité Fab coworking space, a unique place where multidisciplinary professionals from the fields of architecture and urban planning imagine and build the city of tomorrow.
Environmental quality standard
Mediterranean Sustainable Buildings
Silver level