Graphic Unity, Thermal Solutions

 Fifty years after its construction, the "blue low-rise" of the Saint-Anne Hospital Center abandoned its psychiatry specialism to welcome the neurobiological research of INSERM, its laboratories and its large animal house, included in a 155 m² extension on the garden level. Located in the center of Paris at the corner of Rue d'Alésia and Rue de la Santé, this building promises to have a prestigious second life.

"Without completely erasing its past, the changes made to this building give it a new opportunity," explains Michel Rémon. "Its volume, which is now more apparent, reinforces its emblematic status. Its interior functioning has been modernized according to contemporary criteria of safety, sustainability, price and comfort."

The thorough restructuring of the building kept only its concrete shell, gables, posts and floors. It thus opened up the field of possibilities: the intended use of the floor space – now mainly given over to INSERM - is changing and the comfort of the occupants is taking a new direction.

External insulation on the building, oriented north to south, protects the east and west façades from the implacable heat of summer. Above the ground floor of raw natural concrete, the new façades are slid under delicate double skins. Starting on the first floor, their movable metal elements shimmer in a subtle gray moiré. This elegant graphic abstraction continues with the careful treatment of the fifth façade: the terrace is crowned with an "addition" that masks the roof-mounted technical equipment with vertical aluminum slats and a covering with horizontal metal slats.

 "The contemporary curtain walls show off beautifully their thermal protection and give the façade the opportunity to express its relationship to the sun."