Projects

Visual Impact of Stainless Cladding

The Musée des Confluences is a science centre and anthropology museum opened in 2014 in Lyon, France.

It is also a stunning example of the beauty and agility of stainless steel. This already iconic building, designed by Austrian architects, Coop Himmelb(l)au, represents the union of a glass crystal and a stainless steel cloud. It is the use of a layer of stainless steel to cover the cloud that allows it to reflect light and colour; encapsulating echoes of the sky and the city, as well as the water and the greenery.

To complete this project, Aperam delivered 600 tonnes of 316L in a 3mm thickness to the German company, Design Factory, who performed micro-bead blasting. Micro-bead blasting of a Uginox Mat base created a uniform satin effect that offers a particularly contemporary look. Over 17,000 stainless steel tiles in 37 different formats covered the 20,000 m² coating, including the underside of the building and the interior of the lobby and corridors.

Beauty and agility at work, this combination of cladding along with the stark shape of the building gives Musée des Confluences its stealthy appearance that may be accentuated under its shell or diluted in the light, creating the impression of a solid behemoth or a soft cloud.

Aperam Stainless Steel Brings PANEUM Building to Life

If you happen to be in the Austrian village of Asten, you simply can’t help but notice the shiny, futuristic PANEUM building. The four-story building was commissioned by Backaldrin, a local flour and baking ingredients company, to house its information center, exhibition venue and even a museum on the history of bread.   

Designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au, the building is comprised of two structures stacked on top of one another. The lower ‘box’ is made of bare concrete and houses the entrance and special event space.

This contrast strikingly with the metallic bubble that floats on top and houses the main exhibition galleries. Called the ‘Wunderkammer des Brotes’, this top level is comprised of a glue laminated timber structure cladded with Aperam Stainless Steel shingles (Aperam 316L bead blasted, 1mm thickness), which give the building its iconic shine.

Opened in 2017, the exhibition brings the history of bread to life through a collection of over 1,200 objects that date back 9,000 years.

The Parkhotel in Zug planned to erect a temporary ancillary hotel building on a public site that in 12 to 15 years time will be used as the services area for a road building project.

Despite the limited life-span this hotel was to meet the requirements of a four-star facility and to have an unmistakeable character. The standard layout of bedrooms next to each other is transformed into an expressive building volume by swivelling the module. The idyllic location between the trees on the edge of the woods led to the idea of a reflective facade of polished chrome steel. The facetted building volume mirrors its natural surroundings and transforms the place into a kaleidoscope of building and nature. The short period for which the building will be used called for a time-saving construction method, which led to the use of a combined system (timber frame braced by a concrete core).

The City Garden Hotel stands out because of its attractive design and the modern materials which are in total harmony with the green surroundings on the edge of the forest. A combination of contrasts that works impressively, both inside and out. The three-dimensional facade covered in mirror stainless steel panels (Uginox Meca 8 ND) and the rhythmising corridors lend the City Garden Hotel a unique character.

Uginox Meca 8 ND  has been chosen in order that the façade perfectly hamonises with the neighbouring area and reflects the nature, playing with the seasons changing, the colors of the wetaher, the day change from morning to night.

Uginox  Meca 8 ND is a real mirror, unbreakable,  highly resistant to corrosion, easy to maintain.  Traditionnal techniques for implementation have been used: cutting, bending, etc. without having to take any special precautions.

Inside, we have concentrated on warm materials such as wood but also on rough elements such as concrete. Colours are used subtly but deliberately.

The City Garden Hotel, together with the City Apartments, is an ambitious showcase project and gem that will not just enhance the hotel landscape of Central Switzerland in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality. 

The advantages of stainless steel for this hotel:

> A surface finish reflecting the neighbouring area faciliating the building harmonisation with nature

> Ease of maintenance

> Usual implementation with use of standard tools

> Its resistance to corrosion

After opening the Atoll at Angers in 2012, the Phalsbourg Company has kept up the pace with the construction of a second shopping centre designed and built around the principle of an open-air circular promenade to act as a focal point that combines business with pleasure in the form of the main shopping area.

The new loop with its fifty shops along with nine restaurants and cafés of varying sizes is located on the approach into the city of Metz and positioned between the banks of the Moselle and the railway tracks. The shopping centre’s location, on a flood plain, meant that digging was not an option.  A vital component of the project was the inclusion of car parking for up to 2,500 vehicles was consequently positioned at the centre of the loop in a landscaped space built around a 3,500 square metre lake and crossed by a footbridge. With a total width of approximately 50 metres, the ring flows with the contours of the landscape across an area of 17 hectares to create a triangle with generously rounded corners with an entrance and exit on the south side.  The heart of the concept is the loop which presents a 700-metre path along the various storefronts. Deliveries to the shops are made externally via a second, concentric loop which is approximately a kilometre long. The effect is completed by a number of smaller, free-standing buildings, many of which are used as restaurants, strategically placed facing the stores or at the water’s edge. The entire frontage of the 6,000 square metre shopping area opens directly onto the circular promenade or the avenues that crisscross the lushly planted central space.

To reflect and enhance the effect of this reworked natural setting the row of shop windows are topped with a mirror-finished stainless steel (Uginox Bright) cowling that completely envelops the steel structure of the loop.  The stainless steel finish reigns supreme and covers the entire building extending from the two internal and external façades through to the broad canopy that covers the route followed by visitors. Created in the form of a vast, radiant and flowing wave which creates a boundary and stretches for the buildings entire length.  In order to attach the variable wave cowling, a special cladding system was developed using large honeycomb panels covered with bright annealed stainless steel. Spliced together without visible joints, these panels are each around 6m long and 1.5m wide, creating a continuous and flowing reflective surface in line with the designers’ requirements.  The result of eight months’ preparatory work, which included the creation of 3D models and prototypes that were made in Acieroid’s specialist workshops confirmed the solution. In total some 6,000 panels were then manufactured to exact measurements to adapt to the different configurations and geometry of the structure. Covering a total area of 35,000 square metres these panels were put into place over a period of four months.  The project’s tight timescales were achieved in line with a construction permit which was awarded in April 2012 for a handover in October 2014, giving a total site operation period of only nineteen months.

Refurbishment of the Court of Strasbourg

After the French defeat in 1870 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to the German Empire, Strasbourg paid a heavy price. Unchanged since the 15th century, this historic town had to adapt. The adoption in 1878 of a development plan designed by a municipal architect Jean Geoffroy Conrath planned the expansion of the city to the north, beyond the fortifications of the 17th century. The desire from the new imperial power to found the Neustadt, or “New city”, responded to the need to establish its authority within an exemplary capital with official buildings and housing. Stretching beyond Ill Canal which later became the Canal du Faux-Remparts, the Neustadt was the place of some remarkable constructions such as the station (1883), the Palais de l’Université (1884) or the Palais Impérial (1888), creating a common eclectic construction style. The Neustadt was associated for far too long with a painful period in history but is today the symbol of an unwavering French-German reconciliation underpinned by a strong European culture. The restructuring of the Strasbourg railway station in 2007 by the SNCF architecture agency Arep, which fits snuggly under a glass shell, triggered the town’s awareness which then embarked on a drive to protect the future of the buildings in the Neustadt. After the university library was restored in 2014 by the architect Nicolas Michelin, it was time for the Palais de Justice – built in 1898 by the architects Johan-Karl Ott and Skjold Neckelmann – to gain a new leash of life. This exceptional building of 14,920 m² was part of a large-scale renovation project between 2014 and 2016 carried out by the Spanish Architect firm, Garcès-de Seta-Bonet. Located within a densely populated area, the massive building has four grey sandstone facades displaying classic architectural elements (pediments, low relief carvings, columns…). Yet transforming an historical 19th century building into a 21st century court house requires the functional needs of modern public equipment to be supported whilst incorporating updates to comply with security standards applicable to establishments servicing the public (ERP rules). Well-designed from the outset, the internal functional organisation was preserved and adapted to current challenges, with people flow reviews depending on the changing trends in use and the creation of an extension. Designed to hold 225 magistrates and civil servants, this mammoth project involved three delicate construction sites which were located in the heart of the Alsace capital.

A steel origami roof

One of them involved the careful restoration of the listed elements on the supplementary inventory of historical Monuments (1992), which included the facades and skylights, the entrance lobby and the Salle des Pas Perdus with its galleries and staircases, and the court room and its decor. Alongside this, a major renovation of 12,300 m² of floorboards was started as well as the construction of a new section of 6,024 m² in the central yard of the building: thereby increasing the surface area without increasing the floor space. The added section houses the court rooms and the original section houses the offices. Opening out onto the Salle des Pas Perdus, a new landscaped patio has been embedded in the building in order to promote natural light and to be used as an area for people to flow through which is separate from the access areas for staff and prisoners. After a detailed analysis of the existing condition, the architects chose to eliminate the 1978 extension and to replace it with the construction of four partial levels slightly set back from the existing facade to avoid interference. The implementation of a steel framework with steel columns and collaborative floors made it possible to free up large areas quickly and with little disturbance. Although the building was extended by almost 60% of its original surface area, the designers ensured that the extension was the least visible from the street. The latter is topped off with an aerodynamic roof in stainless steel which, as it takes off from the stone parallelepiped, ennobles it and gives it a certain level of modernity. Like a wise origami, this roof which is sculpted by four folded facets topped off by skylights, is surrounded by a steel ring with variable geometry. This complex device implemented on the perimeter of the roof includes a metallic structure in trapezoidal shapes using wood, itself covered in Uginox Top 304 steel bands from Aperam. Customised cut-length sheets from coils 500 mm wide and 0.5 mm thick, the visible strips of 430 mm wide were laid traditionally with standing seams. With a mat appearance, the same definitive and long-lasting,material was implemented in the form of cladding of 2.35 metres high which covered the upper area of three of the four facades of the building and ensures continuity with the slates. In the end, the thoughtful actions of the designers contributed to magnifying the original architecture whilst at the same time adding a number of contemporary touches developing enduring connections between several construction periods.