EDF, construction of building to house the medium term national archives of the Production and Engineering Division
Interview with Guy Andriambololo-Nivo, Manager of the DIRIM Real Estate Division, in charge of managing real estate projects nationwide for the Production and Engineering Division.
How did this construction project for an archive building at Bure come into being?
GA: As part of the program to support economic development in the Meuse and Haute Marne, EDF decided it would centralize the management of all the medium term archives of the Engineering and Production Division at Bure.
The archives are on various media (paper, microfilm), and are stored in the Nuclear, Hydraulic and Thermal Production Units, as well as in the Engineering Units and associated departments. Not only are they dispersed over several sites, they are organized differently. It was therefore critical to centralize, reorganize and optimize their use, including sorting, indexing, data management and availability.
How important is the project?
GA: Over and above the functional aspect of archive management, this is a strategic project which should have a positive social and environmental impact on the region. We worked closely with the local authorities on economic aspects, on how to create jobs in the village and region, and of course on architectural aspects. The building has to integrate into its natural surroundings and meet environmental standards. These are basic requirements in EDF's real estate strategy.
What was the project timetable?
GA: We started determining our needs at the end of 2006. The construction schedule drawn up by Mobilitis was used as the basis for the specifications of a competition which attracted 60 candidates. At the end of the first phase, Mobilitis help us shortlist five architectural firms. The jury made its decision early in January. Sites are currently being considered and the preliminary project phase began in March 2008. A European-wide invitation to tender will go out for the construction work; this is coupled with a requirement for the scheme to have an impact on the local job market. Construction works are expected to terminate 2nd half 2010.
How was the prize winning scheme selected?
GA: We received a range of highly original projects. But only one of them won universal approval from the jury, which was formed of the real estate manager in the Production and Engineering Division, the EDF Property Director, the Bure Director of Economic Support, the Mayor of Bure and architects from the Meuse and Haute Marne region. This was a jury we set up to demonstrate our willingness to involve all the stakeholders. We chose a concept before choosing a building. One of the key elements was blending into the countryside, an architectural concept taking in the construction, the land and the space all around.
What can you say about your collaboration with Mobilitis?
GA: We decided to work with Mobilitis after a tender procedure to find a Project Manager. What convinced us were the skills of the team they put forward. Later, what we really appreciated was availability of Mobilitis, the way it operated in project mode. This helped us work closely as partners. There was real symbiosis between the teams and an utter commitment to the project. This project was strategically important, and had tight constraints and short deadlines. Understanding and sharing these challenges were essential for us to work together efficiently.
Interview with Umberto Napolitano from LAN Architecture, competition prizewinner
How did you approach the Bure archive project?
UN: We began with an overall approach including the social and cultural, environmental and economic challenges, as well as the landscape, and the place of the architecture within it. A single architectural statement had to be an appropriate response to EDF’s requirements and our expectations, after a detailed analysis of the site and the program. The principles of our approach were to make the project compact and minimize the environmental impact. Our architectural investigations explored the concept of a 5-floor building on a footprint of 1400 sqm and with a height of 17.5m. The total floor area is 7000 sqm. Through this approach we were able to:
- make substantial savings on the building’s structural work
- ensure better functionality, translating into a reduction in the number of kilometers walked per person per year
- make virtually no impact on the landscape (the building is very distant from surrounding viewpoints)
- use the land effectively, as it was left clear of construction to the maximum extent possible, the plan being to create extensive facilities onsite for the collection, management and reuse of water
- create a very high performance building in terms of energy efficiency and environmental standards
- make a building of symbolic value, as part of the economic support program for the Meuse and Haute Marne departments.
How does the building blend into the landscape?
UN: Blending the building into the landscape is a duet between agriculture and geography.
- It has to respect farming traditions in the area and the utilitarian aspect of the landscape.
- And, it has to respect the geography of the natural environment, the balance of natural copses, hedgerows, and the lie of the land.
An archive building is by nature massive, inert and thus heavy. The building layout had to be rationalized as far as it could be. The need to optimize storage capacity with minimal management, led us to the simplest and most rational of layouts. Our approach was to design a building that was a cross between a storage bunker and an industrial facility. The challenge was making such a massive object look discreet and light. How could we prevent it breaking into the continuity of the natural countryside?
So that the building projects a sense of airiness, and has an intimate interplay with its natural surroundings, with the nearby fields and copses, we proposed a superposition of numerically cut chrome-surfaced steel plates and earthen-coloured concrete cladding. Hence the structure becomes visually unidentifiable, loses its own shape, reflects the colours of its environment, and the changing seasons. The position and orientation of the building are also visually expressive of the furrows and relief of the land. We also designed an extension that will have no adverse effect on the site as a whole.
How did you respond to environmental compliance goals?
UN: EDF’s environmental ambitions had to be given full consideration, while meeting the specific building performance needs of keeping technical documents in appropriately cool conditions, in an atmosphere of 30 to 45% humidity, with the lowest possible lighting levels. We also set ourselves a goal of zero energy consumption.
This approach requires a strategy of building inertia, adopted well ahead of design considerations, dictating the building morphology, its implantation, its orientation, its materials, shape and feel, and the installation of systems to reduce energy needs to the strict minimum. Compactness was our deliberate choice to minimize heat loss. Louvers on the outside protect the building from solar radiation to the west.
The building fabric optimizes inertia factors and keeps down the need for cooling by using appropriate materials, with additional contribution from the techniques employed for handling the concrete facing. The windows will be fitted with light obstructing blinds over triple glazed low emissivity glass. This will create an internal microenvironment, keeping the temperature at all times between 15° and 17°, no matter the changes in outdoor temperature.
The ventilation system is double flow with heat recovery, so keeping down the energy required for heating while ensuring the hygienic quality of the air. Low voltage lighting will reduce the internal demand for electrical energy. Proximity detectors will be fitted to the storage areas, to shut down lighting when unoccupied.
Total building energy consumption is around 112,000 kWh / year, supplied through photovoltaic panels installed in the roof over 1,100 m², with a production capacity of 116,000 kWh/year. The building will therefore consume no energy.
Water management is also part of the equation. The site is isolated and not connected to mains drainage. The wastewater and run-off from the car parks, polluted with hydrocarbons, is specially treated on site.
The lie of the land and the set-up of the building allow for a natural water purification system using macrophytic lagooning. This means that the waste water trickles slowly by gravity through a number of shallow retention basins over permeable substrates such as gravel, in which suitable vegetation is grown to purify the water: duckweed, bull-rushes, reed-mace, reeds, irises, elder, willow, coontail, piperacea and so on.
Not only is this solution environmentally attractive, but also it opens the possibility of landscaping the system for pleasure purposes.
Clean rainwater recovered from the roof is stored in a tank and re-used for the sanitary system or for watering plants.