Research & Innovation

Hidden away in the hinterland of the Var coastline (France), the villa Navarra, practically boils down to its roof: an immense visor stretching 40 metres with a cantilevered surface of 7.80 metres. An exceptional work, both aesthetically and for its technical complexity, this ultra-thin roof made of Ductal® concrete is a world first. Rudy Ricciotti, laureate of the 2006 National Architecture Grand Prix, Romain Ricciotti, structural engineer, and Mouloud Behloul, Lafarge concrete engineer, present the building.

Born in Canada in 1929, Frank Gehry won in 1989 the famous Pritzker Prize for lifetime achievement, but Gehry had only just begun. The most significant achievements in Frank Gehry's prolific career include LA's Disney concert hall, U.S.A., and of course the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. Actually Gehry certainly knows how to use industrial materials in surprisingly poetic ways. Only materials remained as a way to humanise a building: this has become his trademark...

Frédéric Borel sees the role of an architect as carrying out work that no computer can do as each project is a forward-looking personal interpretation requiring a highly global approach. He is the architect of the new École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-Val de Seine (National School of Architecture), France, a new building in a former factory.

"With the arrival of ultra-high performance fiber-reinforced concrete, we are moving into a new industrial era. Architects are like test pilots on the runway, ready to take off... and we're trading our propeller engines for jets! The Peace Bridge in Seoul spans 130 m but its deck is only 3 cm thick! The concrete slims down until it becomes no more than a delicate whisper."

"The architecture of the 21st century will be environmental or it will be nothing! We must work to minimize the overall impact of buildings on the environment."

"I chose concrete because I wanted to restore and embellish its good name. This material is very widespread is seldom accepted by inhabitants. Unlike smooth, architectonic concrete, the surface treatment I have chosen evokes the haphazard poetry of gathered materials used to build the fishermen's huts that characterize this region. The choice of materials is, for me, part of the architectural research, an important element during my reflections on the construction, framework and covering of the building. Consequently, the concrete used for the gymnasium goes well beyond its role as a construction material and becomes the building's skin."

"In this center, visitors are confronted with unusual spaces: the floors are not built one above the other and the blocks rest on cones, which may rise through them. In addition to these architectural aspects, the building is currently the biggest construction in Europe built using self-compacting concrete. Without this new type of concrete, the building's shapes, fretwork angles, curves, interrupted planes and outcroppings would have been more difficult to produce."

"This building rises out of the concrete surface of the bus parking area like an organic outcrop. By striking a chord between the structural characteristics of ultra-high performance fiber-reinforced concrete and its malleable qualities, Ductal® has achieved the ever challenging feat of blending the building and its foundation into a coherent unit."

Architectures du béton: Nouvelles vagues, nouvelles recherches, by Jean-Louis Cohen and Martin Moeller, published in May 2006 by Editions Hors Collection.

Making of - Phare & Hypergreen Towers, by Jacques Ferrier, architect, published in February 2007 by Editions Archives d'Architecture Moderne (A.A.M.), Ante Prima.

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