Materials

Careful construction work characterized all the components of the project, the work demonstrating many superimposed levels of architectural composition.

• Expression of the calcareous geology Bare walls of stone were left exposed on the levels of the underground parking area, acting as a base against which its curved structure stands out.

• Civil engineering and concrete structures The civil engineering work visible in the curved structure of the parking areas and under the facing of the façade reveals a complex design of flat curves.

• Work on the stone facing The stone facing is not intended to hide the grey concrete structure, but instead has been placed slightly out of sync with it, allowing the different layers making up the project to be seen. Various types of stone treatment have been used: massive sawn stone blocks, shaped with a splitter and finished, for the lower parts and thick fixed stone for the upper.

• Additional urban work On the stone walls of the façades, elements in iron and wood complete the façade design and that of the public areas.

Gratings to conceal the façades

The guidelines indicated that the ground floor of the building, like the other floors, would be taken up by office space.

A motif of intertwining lines was chosen for these gratings, such as that obtained by scribbling on a pad with a biro. In expanding this design to full size, the firm first photographically enlarged it and then entered this enlargement manually into a computer.

The method followed by those entering the design naturally consisted of following the lines made by the pen and entering these one by one into the computer while trying to preserve the tension of a design that came from the contact of the hand with paper.

This procedure took a long time, and none of the designs produced by the computer had the dynamism of those made by hand. Architect Aviva Silbert then changed the method, proposing instead that the lines themselves be ignored and only the blank spaces between them be entered into the computer. She tried this method, with immediately much improved results: without now having to make any further adjustments, the computer design exhibited all the dynamism of the original one made by hand, and in a few hours all the variations necessary for making the panels had been entered.