Snøhetta creates a ‘green heart’ for a dense urban neighbourhood

The new State Administrative Centre designed by Tenderstream member Snøhetta has opened in Lyon, located in the city’s second-largest business district. The densely-populated area is the subject of a vast renovation plan that includes the redevelopment of public spaces and the creation of new public buildings, housing and offices. The design challenge was to create a distinctive building on a constrained site, which features several plane trees, a vestige of Lyon's history in the last century.

Snøhetta created a building with a simple, uncluttered massing representative of the local architecture, built around a landscaped pocket formed by the two rows of preserved plane trees. The building’s layout forms a U-shape around a green core, fragmenting the 19,000 sq m of office space into several volumes. This arrangement limits the visual impact of the building, allows facades to benefit from as much natural light as possible, and encourages the creation of outdoor terraces and gardens to establish a natural space within a built-up environment.

Public reception areas are grouped together on the ground floor, with the upper floors accessible only to staff and invited guests. Two 5-storey office wings provide workspaces with a view of the garden. The plane trees cast shade on the south-facing façades in summer, while providing generous amounts of sunlight and light in winter. 

The delivery and assembly of pre-fabricated materials for the modular façade system helped with the logistics of delivery and construction on such a constrained site. Façades exposed to the elements feature glazing widths adjusted according to requirements for solar exposure, light gain and passage width. The more sheltered facades on the south and north of the building have vertical and horizontal decorative elements that gradually reduce to become smooth as the façades extend westwards. 

The concept of the 1800 sq m planted core around the plane trees is complemented by the creation of 1300 sq m of outdoor areas on terraces and roofs. Together, these areas contribute to the development of biodiversity and the creation of a cool island in a dense urban area.

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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