To combine light installation, acoustic comfort and a welcoming ambience in this enormous empty shell measuring almost 7,500 m2 (over 80,700 sq ft), the architects drew inspiration from Texaa solutions. “We are very familiar with Texaa products”, explains Arnaud Dauly of Kardham, “as is our installation sub-contractor Guitteny. And so we used acoustic products to implement our design concept.” And area identification too. In fact the space is divided into three “cages” or areas, each with its own camaieu of hues chosen from the Texaa colour catalogue: grey for the part of the building that faces the city, green for the section that overlooks the country and blue for the part that looks out over water. The building is very long and has a gigantic, glazed façade, almost 160 metres (520 feet) long. The sound-absorbing curtains hung along this façade have a dual role: their soft material appearance contributes a feeling of warmth and texture, and they also prevent interior sound from bouncing off the glazed surfaces, ensuring the correct level of acoustic comfort in areas, especially those that are shared. Round Stereo panels with standard and special diameters break up the flatness of the ceilings, while rectangular versions on the walls look like lines of paintings. And the initial terms of the request are addressed by the fact that the curtains and panels are light and easy to install and clean. In the event that some fittings need to be changed over time, the installation systems can, for example, be altered. Furthermore, if the Prefecture departments moved to another building in the future, all the fittings could be very easily taken down and reinstalled in the new premises. This was the case recently for a Parisian customer, who moved to larger premises: his Stereo panels, numbering around one hundred, were renovated, reorganised and reinstalled in his new offices with an additional seventy new panels.
