Projects

Stainless Steel Adds a Dash of Contemporary to the Historic Hotel Fouquet’s Barrière Paris  

The building that is now the Hotel Fouquet’s Barrière Paris has a long, eventful history. Located on the world-renowned Champs-Elysées, the Haussmann-style building dates to 1863 and, at one point or another, has served as a popular bar, meeting place for World War I aviators, luxury brasserie, and cinema. Named a historic monument in 1990, it has been the home of the Hotel Fouquet’s Barrière Paris since 2006.

A recent renovation has restored the building to its original state. In addition to refurbishing the guest rooms and amenity areas, the project also reworked the interior courtyard. To hide the ventilation ducts that run through the space, architects added an 18 m high, 10 m wide stainless steel wall that essentially serves as a screen. Adding a contemporary aesthetic to the landscape, the material’s mirror finish increases natural light and reflects the opposite façade, giving the impression that the courtyard is more spacious than it really is.

Resistant to the corrosive effect of city pollution and easy to maintain, the stainless steel wall is the latest chapter in this building’s fascinating story.

The new island pavilion and footbridge, completed in June 2014, are located at the centre of Wormsley Estate, a pastoral landscape on a grand scale at the heart of the Chiltern Hills, close to Oxford.

Conceived in the English classical tradition of a pavilion in the landscape, the project re-interprets the 18th Century tradition for the 21st Century and follows on from our adjacent Opera Pavilion, completed in 2011. The Island Pavilion, Wormsley House and Garsington Opera House form a landscape group of “Pavilions in the Park”. The Island Pavilion will be used for entertaining during the summer months of opera, including dining, receptions, art exhibition and musical recitals and has been designed as a container to house a stainless steel sculpture by Jeff Koons entitled, “Cracked Egg (Blue)”.

This project completes the architectural composition and aims to integrate architecture, design and art within a protected English landscape.

Site Location:

Wormsley is located on the Oxfordshire / Buckinghamshire border and extends to approximately 1,000 hectares of woodland and farmland. It is an established historic country estate with easy access from both Oxford and London, which is only 35 miles away.

The site is on an island in the centre of a lake, surrounded by open parkland which is viewed from Wormsley House and the Opera Pavilion. It creates the architectural focus for 360 degree views from around the Estate.

The Design Concept: The Pavilion is planned and located to maximise panoramic views outwards across the landscape. It is set-out along classical lines with its main entrance beneath a portico, a two metre wide overhanging canopy running the length of the building, which provides shade to the facade, and gives access to the Main Room. All service spaces such as the kitchen, plant room and bathroom facilities are positioned to the rear on the plan along the western elevation. The structural form has been designed to express the plan layout, with the main structural supports and roof cantilevering from the western edge of the building. There is no external lighting: The Pavilion becomes a light fitting at night, lit from within by an illuminated acoustically transparent ceiling, or upside down light box. It acts as a lantern in the landscape when glimpsed from The House and by the opera pavilion audience at the end of a

performance.

The new bridge ‘skims’ the surface of the lake with minimum impact when viewed from the surrounding landscape. It is designed as an extruded plane, held above the surface of the water by a concealed steel structure and illuminated from below, filtering light through the perforated decking and creating a glistening bridge surface.

Materials:

The Pavilion is a lightweight factory made product, but in contrast to its nearby relative, the ‘temporary’ opera pavilion, the island pavilion and bridge are permanent structures, fabricated using high quality durable materials and finishes – stainless steel as opposed to galvanised steel. Matt Uginox Top stainless steel was selected for construction, with a bead-blasted effect and as a long life maintenance-free material, is in contrast to the highly polished stainless steel finish of the permanent sculpture. The use of steel also celebrates 100 years since the invention of stainless steel in Sheffield in 1913. Materials, Finishes and Fittings were considered within the pavilion interior including the illuminated acoustic ceiling system, lacquered wall panelling, terrazzo floor, Jean Prouve furniture, and cutlery and crockery by David Mellor. A further external sculpture by Mel Kendrick entitled ‘Marker 4’ has also been added to the island.

Innovation:

The project seeks to continue the experimental tradition of a relatively small project used to advance the understanding of technology and product design. Innovations include:-

> A thermally insulated stainless steel superstructure with insulation filled structural members and composite floor cassettes containing insulation, under-floor heating and floor finish.

> An integrated roof and rear wall stainless steel cladding system, developed with the contractors, incorporating a bespoke panelised stainless steel sheet rainscreen system fixed

through a continuous waterproof roofing membrane using stainless steel precision engineered watertight fixings, now patented and under development for future projects.

> An illuminated acoustically transparent ceiling, flexible enough to be used for the display of art, evening dining and musical performances 

> A completely factory prefabricated product, by necessity, due to its location and restricted site. The project took six months to complete from place order to completion. It is a lesson in teamwork, integrated design and working directly with fabricators, resulting in a crafted product utilising contemporary materials and technologies.

Bogindhu is a large house extension and refurbishment of Bogindhu farmhouse in Aberdeenshire. The Project required a significant amount of work to the existing farmhouse including the removal of ground floor and first floor structures.

All internal walls of the original house were removed to reorganise the spaces within. The original external walls of the house were stripped back to expose the bare stone and re-lined to include insulation in order to increase the efficiency of the house.

 The new house extension was designed as a contemporary barn structure, placed in an ‘L’ formation to complete the missing side of the farm court. The first floor was marked by a stainless steel band ( Uginox Top, type 316) which serves as a cill for the cladding and in places as a gutter. The roof is a 0.5 mm standing seam system set at 500 mm which was hand-formed on site and, at just 4kg / m², weighs considerably less than a similar system in copper, zinc or aluminium. Moreover, they prefered to replace the proposed zinc roof with a stainless steel one due to concerns that the run-off water from the larch cladding, which contains tannins, may have discoloured the zinc.  Uginox Top’s durable matt finish is designed to harmonise with a wide variety of building styles and materials, in this case vertical timber façades, full height windows and stone walls.

Internally, the house extension is deliberately different from the existing stone house, the spaces are large and open with high ceilings. The double height space overlooking the living room provides a sense of drama and contrast to the smaller, more intimate spaces of the cottage.

Familistère is an exercise in highlighting the capabilities of five partners in one architectural practice, archi5, who rose to a challenge to build their own homes together in Montreuil, France adjacent to their offices. It also beautifully showcases how stainless steel, most often used in public buildings, is a versatile material of choice for private buildings. 

The architectural approach was to design a building with a light touch to avoid an overpowering visual impact. KARA stainless steel was archi5’s choice of material to achieve the building’s façade – lightly fluted with shallow waves adapted to suit the scale of the building – reflecting sunlight to surrounding buildings during the day and reflecting street lights at night. The Uginox® Bright covering, with its brilliant finish, takes on all the colours of the seasons. The result is a dynamic façade with a genuine sense of motion.

Stainless steel has a harmonious application and the façades were entirely laid out based on the measurements of the sheets used, which meant that the window modules could be inserted at regular and precise intervals. The sheets were fitted to a primary frame structure and attached using visible stainless steel hexagonal screws. A hollow 5mm joint is inserted between each sheet. Edging on the building is also made from stainless steel.

KARA is Aperam’s unique brand of ferritic stainless steels, which, unlike other stainless steels, do not contain nickel, rendering KARA immune from the erratic price fluctuations of this alloying element. This is a big advantage for the construction sector where project costing and economic design are key elements as the absence of nickel holds prices for these products at a more stable level over time. 

The entire Familistère project took two years from funding, conception, design and construction.

The messenger is present in all works by Nathalie Decoster. It is the human being that we all are, you and me. It is always included in a geometric shape, circle, square, cube or mobile sometimes. It represents the relationship between man and the face of time, human frailty but also the sharing of ideas. It may be suspended by the arms, feet or on top of a spring and withstand the vagaries of time and always reminds us that everyone has the right to “win”…

“I work on the human condition. The idea is not to forget to take the time to stop, take the time for yourself and to look at each other and see what is happening all around”, N. Decoster

The artist Nathalie Decoster travels the world and, through her philosophical approach, creates deep exchanges with audiences of all backgrounds and cultures, “veritable spiritual nourishment ” that allows her to understand reactions. While still working with bronze, she has tried several new approaches with new materials, an unusual variety that includes aluminium, stainless steel, concrete and glass. 

This is why Aperam was asked to provide ArcelorMittal stainless steel (304/189E/1.4301 grade) in different aspects and carbon steel. The project was to create several very large sculptures and expose them in Sao Paulo, Hong Kong and Macau… 

An original and unexpected way to put our stainless steel on the centre stage!