PARIS | AIR² | 195 m / 640 ft | 43 floors

[mousquet]

Finally opening its own thread cause it's quite likely to be built.
Renderings from defense-92.fr.





Well known render including 4 new towers, 3 of them currently U/C (Majunga, Carpe Diem, D2):

When AIR² stuck to D2 to the left on the render is U/C as well, this whole thing gets real.

AIR² is nicknamed la tulipe (well known flower) because of its shape. From above:


Note that its height is actually 666 ft - sorry, can't help but thinking of the superstitious interpreting the Bible in their creepy way - that's 203 m from the natural ground on D2's side. Both towers are obviously closely connected, creating a better connection between the slab (the esplanade) and the north ring boulevard, which is a very interesting improvement. AIR²'s height is indeed 640 ft taken from the slab level.

Use: office (roughly 860k sq ft)
Design: Arquitectonica / Arte Charpentier Architectes
Developers: Bouygues Immobilier / BNP Paribas Immobilier
Investor: Carlyle Group

It will take obsolete Aurore tower's place. The demolition is to begin this spring.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by me above

It will take obsolete Aurore tower's place. The demolition is to begin this spring.

Wrong. Carlyle, Bouygues & co are still discussing their deal with EPADESA, that's the government body in charge of the district development, ruled by a council of 9 local and 7 national representatives. That's no problem, the EPADESA chief executive will submit the finalized record to the council in April, then they'll be glad to approve it. But he doesn't think Bouygues would start the work before the end of the year.

Can't wait for Aurore (that's a mess) to be torn down to make room for this.

http://arquitectonica.com/

Arquitectonica's recent local things include Exaltis and the Microsoft Euro headquarters which are alright, I think (esp. the Microsoft building). Their Sequana (Bouygues Telecom headquarters) on the other hand is nothing great, as mid-rises around it look better than the tower.
They just can't do anything worse than Aurore anyways.

[colemonkee]

Looks like more of the same spandrel glass we keep complaining about, though.

[mousquet]

That's what I fear from seeing a square panel below each window. They say it would be entirely covered with a 2nd skin that is a bit noticeable, starting a few stories above the foot, I think, and might produce the same kind of effect as First's partial 2nd layer. That would be nice.


First by Chrispic

I constantly wonder what those spandrel panels are useful for anyway. This building claims the same environmental standards as Carpe Diem, French HQE and THPE, which is equivalent to North American LEED (Carpe Diem claims LEED gold). Now Manhattan's new 7 WTC is certified LEED gold with a simple, light and sophisticated glass curtain, therefore spandrel glass is definitely not necessary to improve energy efficiency/environmental quality.
Would it help to cut costs? Maybe but in fact, they rather appear to be added materials compared to a minimalist glass curtain.
Maybe it's merely some architects' taste.