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Fiteco's new head office condenses multiple functions into one building
The public accounting group Fiteco was willing to get its head office and its local branch together in only one area, situated in the suburb of Laval. The French architecture office Colboc Franzen & Associés decided to go further and to design a single building, so the construction would cost less, the environmental impact of the building would be reduced and the internal organisation would be optimised.
On the first floor are situated all the common facilities. The local branch settled down on the second floor and the head office on the third and last floor. The heart of the building is composed of an atrium, two cores of services (staircase, elevators, restrooms, photocopy room…). The interior is kept in white, floors in light grey; only the setting of the ceiling lights creates a noticeable graphisme. The air conditioning system runs all around each floor at the ceiling along the façade, a uniform positioning of the power sockets and the moveable dividing (non load-bearing) walls give its versatility to the building.
Therefore the neutrality of the working environment doesn’t interfere with the worker’s concentration. The whole building is hatched with a grid (grid unit = 60 cm). Every little detail follows this implacable rhythm. Only the mirror polished stainless steel sheets and the reflection glass of the outer shell break with the strictness of the interior that reflects in itself the rigor of the company. The folded envelope offers, all year long, the reflection of the surrounding nature and the changing light of the seasons.
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