The Féval city-block is a significant part of the renovation program performed around the Rennes rail-station. The urban project is developed by FGP and Territores. The project suggests to develop a new territory to connect the two sides of the city involving changes in landscape and topography. The railway road passes through urban structures like a river would pass through giant tectonic monuments in a form of large crystals.

The project consists of three buildings made ​​by 3 different architects, the whole project is structured around a landscape rift. The “crystals” are carved in a way to make the inner territory be reachable by sunlight.

We defined a section of the office by calibrating floors to 3.40m slab to slab. Savings in the height of each floor added up to one additional floor for the 28m building. Thus this solution created a large area which gives us the flexibility to “cut” large volumes to produce fancy crystal-like shapes making all composition more spectacular. This ability to resize volumes allows us to create a valley where the three buildings meet on the Féval Street and allow daylight to enter into the center of the block.

Success of the Féval city-block depends heavily on the quality of the infrastructure on the ground floors of the three buildings. We paid particular attention to increasing accessibility to the inner spaces from the outside.

Design: Périphériques Architectes, a/LTA architectes, Hamonic&Masson