Station F
Paris, France
SDECN (Xavier Niel)
Developer: SEMAPA
Architect in charge: WILMOTTE & ASSOCIES
Furniture design: WILMOTTE & INDUSTRIES
Architect of historical Monuments: 2B2M
Execution architect: MOM
Structural engineering office: MIZRAHI
Facade design office: ARCORA
Climate engineering: TRANSSOLAR
Fluid engineering office: BARBANEL
Acoustic engineering office: LASA
Landscaper: D'ICI LA
Lighting designer: COUP D'ECLAT
Engineering office: ARTELIA
Planning, Control and Coordination / Project management of execution: CICAD
Economist: GLEEDS
34,034 sq.m Floor area
310 meters long x 58 meters wide
2018
Refurbishment of a former train-truck transhipment building into a start-up campus consisting of three parallel naves. The programme includes the creation of a reception, meeting and digital sharing centre, an auditorium and meeting rooms.
The Halle Freyssinet, renamed Station F, is a remarkable building made of prestressed reinforced concrete and built between 1927 and 1929 by the engineer Eugène Freyssinet. An innovative technique for using concrete gave this hall an exceptionally light load-bearing structure, which has led to it being listed as a Historic Monument since 2012.
Located in the heart of the urban renewal sector of the ZAC Paris Rive Gauche, below the François Mitterrand Library, in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the building consists of three parallel naves made of thin pre-stressed concrete vaults, whose thickness can be reduced to less than 5 cm at the ridge. The presence of suspended canopies overhanging the building allows the extreme structural thinness of the whole by serving as counterweights, thus allowing the concrete skeleton to be optimised and reduced to the sole expression of the forces that run through it.
The intelligence of the project lies in its programme, which fits into the building without disfiguring its structure. The interest of our intervention, by leaving the concrete vaults and the perspective on the length of the building visible, is to have preserved this industrial heritage.
Jean-Michel Wilmotte
architect
The project is divided into three distinct zones, each with its own identity:
– Share: extending from a vast mineral square, the digital meeting and sharing forum includes a “Fab Lab” (prototyping workshop with free access 3D printers, etc.), a 370-seat auditorium and meeting rooms.
– Create: the heart of Station F is dedicated to the work spaces of start-ups. The central nave, which is left open, provides multi-purpose and community spaces, while the side naves house 24 villages (8 per level). Each village is unique and offers a range of services (kitchen, Skype box, meeting rooms, etc.) and open shared workspaces equipped with modular and connected tables.
– Chill: the multi-functional, 24-hour restaurant, La Felicità, is a place open to the neighbourhood thanks to a south-facing terrace that opens generously onto a tiered garden.
This programme has enabled the renovated Freyssinet Hall to reconnect with its neighbourhood through the profound transformation of its surroundings. In addition to the forecourt to the north and the terraced garden to the south, two new side streets have been created that favour pedestrians and plants. These streets are lined with a series of shops and businesses that attract the neighbourhood's inhabitants, thus encouraging exchanges with the 3,000 young people who continuously colonise the Station F space.
