Office building in Paris

DVVD Architecture Ingenierie Design – France

Building use

Office building

Country/Region

France

Overview

The building rises on the site previously occupied by another much smaller building of 11.000square meters. The new building thus had a very limited site. A steel exoskeleton was adopted to distribute 50% of the lateral loads on the widest footprint possible, to limit the size of the central core. Steel construction was immediately seen as the ideal option to limit the weight of the new tower by 30% if compared to a similar building.

Basic information (construction date, number of stories, gross floor area, adopted design code, engineer(s), Contractor(s), etc.)

Construction date: 2011-2014
Number of stories: 37
Gross floor area: 54,000m2
Adopted design code: –
Engineer(s): DVVD Architecture Ingenierie Design
Contractor(s): GTM general contractor

Issue and/or innovation

The ovoidal shape of the tower footprint and the diagrid exoskeleton structure required a very precise construction scheme with beams up to 12 meters in length.

Reason for composite solution

The composite solution was used to increase the speed of construction and to obtain unobstructed free spans of up to 12 meters while limiting floor deflections and vibrations.

Specific solution/technical details

The composite floor is realized with cellular beams based on IPE 450 and on HEA 450 profiles, meant to strengthen the floor assembly without excessively increasing the self weight of the elements. The decking is made with metal sheet of 0.75 mm of thickness, ribbed to increase the composite action with the concrete pour above.

Impact or effectiveness

50.000 square meters of composite floor systems have been installed, allowing the realization of about 1 floor per week. Overall, about 4000 tons of steel have been used in the structure of which 1200 of cellular beams.