Architecture exhibition. 16.05. - 30.06.2009. Berlin, Germany
RATP BUS CENTRE
RATP BUS CENTRE IN THIAIS
Introduction
The RATP (literally “autonomous control of Parisian transport”) wished to realize a new
building intended for the bus drivers and the administrative staff of the existing center.
Located in Thiais, it controls all the bus lines of the south and the east of Paris City.
It will replace an obsolete building which should be demolished at the end of the work.
Programmatic context
The building concentrates lots of specificities and lots of representatives. The centre
accommodates 300 buses. 800 bus drivers forward trough the building every day,
plus the administrative staffs which manages the centre. It’s a flux building. The plan
has been in evolution during all the studies, the work and is still “moving”. So there is
no pre-determined structural or functional screen on the building. Aside the
administrative building, the program included the realization of a new checkpoint of
the centre and a bikes shelter.
Site
It’s located in Ile de France, in the south of Paris in the 9-4 department. It’s an industrial
context, characterised by a succession of boxes, at best basic. In this chaotic
landscape, there is not much to say. Solely can we point out one federating element:
the mineral ground – a mix of asphalt and concrete…
Project
We reduced the site to a bus park, a vast monolithic concrete slab, uniformed territory
composed of one sole material. The building starts with the deformation of the ground,
the distortion of the existing concrete slab, and continues it with an apparently similar
material Ductal ®, still concrete but a dazzling sheet of concrete, which responds to
very sophisticated demands: informality of the structure, constant evolution of the plans,
dematerialization, precision, density, homogeneity of aspect according to the mould
designed. It ensures a continuity of the ground from the road, to the skin of the façades,
the suspended ceilings and the terrace rooftop without any rupture. This possible
dematerialisation comforts the approach of sustainable construction objectives; the
precision contributes to the conception of the facades as a skin with an exterior
isolation, homogeneity of aspect allowing carrying out any specific pattern. Combined with
the structural qualities of the material, the building has neither a beginning nor an end.
It is a continuity of a surface of which we can, depending on what you aim at, not control
the limits. It is an inflection of a slab which spreads on the whole site.
The building appears like a monolith with rounded edges, polished somehow.
Characterized by a dense square plan (35m x 35m) developed on 2 levels, it presents
itself as the continuity of the banal coating of the roads, like a piece stamped from
distorting the existing concrete surface of the Bus Center. The Ductal ® is used here
as a morphing to cover the carcass of a composite program. The result is a dense
building, inert, deaf, and enigmatic as “the hull of a Russian submarine in the waters
of Murmansk”.
The building is deformed by stamping its context – uniformity between the building and
its support to a point of confusion. This crust that covers the evolution area of the buses
is distorted, modeled to cover the administrative center. The “windows” are cut with a
cutter blade : surgical incisions generating volumes in negative which reveal colored
mirrors under the thin crust of concrete.
The texture games are facilitated by the flexibility of the material and its ability to be
molded with precision. The quality of finish and rigor of Ductal ® contribute to ensuring
this concrete skin, accurate, continuous, perfect connections. The skin : 3 cm thick
displays a single texture of dots in relief like a game of "LEGO": 24 mm diameter x 7 mm
high, distant of 12 mm.
The concrete hull is cut out with a cutter putting at sharp, revealing cavities of reflective
and coloured glass under the concrete crust. Treated with silver mirror dots, chromatics
of the glass products are inspired by the tinted curtain wall frontages of the office
buildings which border the main road.
Introduction
The RATP (literally “autonomous control of Parisian transport”) wished to realize a new
building intended for the bus drivers and the administrative staff of the existing center.
Located in Thiais, it controls all the bus lines of the south and the east of Paris City.
It will replace an obsolete building which should be demolished at the end of the work.
Programmatic context
The building concentrates lots of specificities and lots of representatives. The centre
accommodates 300 buses. 800 bus drivers forward trough the building every day,
plus the administrative staffs which manages the centre. It’s a flux building. The plan
has been in evolution during all the studies, the work and is still “moving”. So there is
no pre-determined structural or functional screen on the building. Aside the
administrative building, the program included the realization of a new checkpoint of
the centre and a bikes shelter.
Site
It’s located in Ile de France, in the south of Paris in the 9-4 department. It’s an industrial
context, characterised by a succession of boxes, at best basic. In this chaotic
landscape, there is not much to say. Solely can we point out one federating element:
the mineral ground – a mix of asphalt and concrete…
Project
We reduced the site to a bus park, a vast monolithic concrete slab, uniformed territory
composed of one sole material. The building starts with the deformation of the ground,
the distortion of the existing concrete slab, and continues it with an apparently similar
material Ductal ®, still concrete but a dazzling sheet of concrete, which responds to
very sophisticated demands: informality of the structure, constant evolution of the plans,
dematerialization, precision, density, homogeneity of aspect according to the mould
designed. It ensures a continuity of the ground from the road, to the skin of the façades,
the suspended ceilings and the terrace rooftop without any rupture. This possible
dematerialisation comforts the approach of sustainable construction objectives; the
precision contributes to the conception of the facades as a skin with an exterior
isolation, homogeneity of aspect allowing carrying out any specific pattern. Combined with
the structural qualities of the material, the building has neither a beginning nor an end.
It is a continuity of a surface of which we can, depending on what you aim at, not control
the limits. It is an inflection of a slab which spreads on the whole site.
The building appears like a monolith with rounded edges, polished somehow.
Characterized by a dense square plan (35m x 35m) developed on 2 levels, it presents
itself as the continuity of the banal coating of the roads, like a piece stamped from
distorting the existing concrete surface of the Bus Center. The Ductal ® is used here
as a morphing to cover the carcass of a composite program. The result is a dense
building, inert, deaf, and enigmatic as “the hull of a Russian submarine in the waters
of Murmansk”.
The building is deformed by stamping its context – uniformity between the building and
its support to a point of confusion. This crust that covers the evolution area of the buses
is distorted, modeled to cover the administrative center. The “windows” are cut with a
cutter blade : surgical incisions generating volumes in negative which reveal colored
mirrors under the thin crust of concrete.
The texture games are facilitated by the flexibility of the material and its ability to be
molded with precision. The quality of finish and rigor of Ductal ® contribute to ensuring
this concrete skin, accurate, continuous, perfect connections. The skin : 3 cm thick
displays a single texture of dots in relief like a game of "LEGO": 24 mm diameter x 7 mm
high, distant of 12 mm.
The concrete hull is cut out with a cutter putting at sharp, revealing cavities of reflective
and coloured glass under the concrete crust. Treated with silver mirror dots, chromatics
of the glass products are inspired by the tinted curtain wall frontages of the office
buildings which border the main road.
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