Métropole Rouen Normandie Headquarters, France, 2018
The new Métropole headquarters takes its inspiration from the beautiful landscape of Rouen, and sits sensitively within its surrounding context, a unique historical landscape of quays and ports. A sharply dramatic built profile creates a silhouette referencing the renovated industrial buildings on the right bank, its oblique shapes reminiscent of the nearby cranes and the bows of passing ships. The building’s envelope is covered with fish-like glass ‘scales’ layered with metal oxide to create a colourful, iridescent facade which reflects the changing light of the seasons, the water and the Normandy sky. The shifting effect is inspired by the Impressionists, in particular Claude Monet’s many paintings of Rouen Cathedral. The transparency and depth of the double façade offsets its mass and prevents it from appearing overbearing. During the day, filled with and reflecting light, the building appears to float on the quay. Environmental features include the double skin which provides the building with passive thermal protection and solar panels, manufactured with nuances of colour, on all elevations and the roof. A new atrium slices the building in half from top to bottom to bring natural daylight deep into the heart of the plan. Openable windows provide comfort cooling overnight which along with the cooling of the exposed structure contributes to an exceptional energy performance. Internally, work spaces are arranged according to use with intuitive wayfinding and excellent levels of natural daylight. External spaces are generous with patio spaces and terraces for staff and visitors. A large rooftop terrace offers panoramic views across the city and river. A significant amount of detailed craft and artistry went into the construction of the building which became synonymous with the artistry of labour required to create such a beautiful and functional object.
- Area
8,300 sqm
- Status
built
- Cost
€25M
- Client
Métropole Rouen Normandie
- With
C&E ingénierie, SOGETI, ACV
- Awards
American Architecture Prize 2017 – Institutional Architecture, International Architecture Awards 2017, ABB Leaf Awards 2018 – Shortlisted in Commercial Building category, Palmarès de l’Architecture et de l’Aménagement de la Seine-Maritime – Architecture d’Exception 2018, Trophées Eiffel 2018
Ferrier Marchetti Studio is a Paris and Shanghai based architecture studio.
Our work was awarded with numerous international awards, and has been the subject of several monographic exhibitions worldwide.
In 2010, we launched the research lab Sensual City with the philosopher Philippe Simay. In 2024, the firm welcomed four new partners: Amela Begovic, office manager, Emmanuel Coudert, François Marquet and Aurélien Pasquier, architects. Long-time collaborators, they join Pauline Marchetti and Jacques Ferrier in implementing their vision, which combines constructive creativity with the exploration of ideas.
Ferrier Marchetti Studio implements strategies that transform ideas into actions and develop innovative project solutions.
Our approach relies on different kinds of actions that answer and feed each other:
• Involve the client in a constant co-design process
• Articulate knowledge and know-how by bringing together a wide range of diverse fields around a transversal and collaborative methodology
• Be and remain at the cutting edge of innovation thanks to a strong research and development division
• Create innovative tools that enhance representation and experimentation of architecture (sensitive map, VR) for clients, elected officials and citizens;
• Share and provide our expertise, thanks to a prospective editorial production
Jacques Ferrier and Pauline Marchetti are further involved in a wider thinking of architecture and the city through teachings, essays and lectures.
About
Jacques Ferrier is an architect and urban planner. Following his architectural training at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville and the École Centrale de Paris, he created his own architecture firm in Paris in 1993 and has since worked in France and internationally. His work aim to create architecture and cities for a creative and sustainable society. Jacques Ferrier is the author of a number of articles and books and has been the subject of monographs, notably The Architecture of Jacques Ferrier, ed. Thames&Hudson. Jacques Ferrier is a Professor, he is a member and at the Academy of Architecture and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Pauline Marchetti is a qualified architect graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville, and a teacher at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris. She develops a humanist approach to architecture propounding design and research methods which are based on the sensory dimension of space. Pauline Marchetti is laureate of the Europe 40Under40 Award that celebrates the next new talented generation of European architects and designers.
Pauline Marchetti and Jacques Ferrier started collaborating in 2008, when they designed the French Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo. Since then, they have developed a significant portfolio that combines research and architecture. Their work has been the subject of several international exhibitions including “Impressionismus” at the Architektur Galerie of Berlin; “Non Oppressive Design” at the DOKK1 in Aarhus and “A Vision for the Sensual City” in Beijing, Shanghai, Manila, Singapore, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. The Design Center UQAM in Montreal dedicated a monographic exhibition to their work, “Entre-Deux”, in autumn 2019. Pauline Marchetti and Jacques Ferrier lecture widely at prestigious venues and their work and researches have been published in a wide range of books and prestigious magazines.
Team
Ferrier Marchetti Studio team includes:
• Ninon Barray • Amela Begovic • Marion Bernard • Ezgi Basli • Brigitta Bertolini • Martial Boucheron • Silvestru Cania • Xiaoyong Cheng • Emmanuel Coudert • Jacques Ferrier • Léo Figuet • Valérie Garachon • François Gastesoleil • Fabien Goutelle • Anne Grosset-Brun • Jue Hou • Stéphanie Legrand • Zhaohan Li • Yang Liu • Pauline Marchetti • François Marquet • Sandra Nataf • Aurélien Pasquier • Baptiste Pery • Clémentin Rachet • Juliette Saloux • Gabriel De Sercey • Tingqiu Shen • Wen Shi • Philippe Simay • Ana Rosa Soria • Yu Su • Qiao Wang • Tianyuan Yao
Selected Awards
• ABB Leaf Awards (Shortlisted) • ADC Award • American Architecture Prize • AMO Prize • Architecture Masterprize • Architizer A+Award • BEX Awards • Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite • Chevalier des Arts et Lettres • Harvard's Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design • Industrial Solar Architecture Prize • International Architecture Award • MIPIM Award • Moniteur Prize • Nomination for the Equerre d’Argent Prize • Nomination for the Grand Prix national de l’Architecture • Trophée Eiffel d’architecture acier • Trophées Bois Ile-de-France • World Architecture Festival Award (Highly Commended Mentions)
Work
Innovative Places of Work:
• Grand Central Saint-Lazare, Paris • Paris Region Headquarters, Saint-Ouen • 3M France Headquarters, Cergy-Pontoise • T20 Xujiahui building, Shanghai • La Courrouze Offices, Rennes • Quatuor, Angers • CPAM Morbihan Heaquarters, Vannes • Metropole Rouen-Normandie Headquarters, Rouen • DCNS Campus, Toulon • AMDM Headquarters, Montpellier • Yidian Offices Campus, Shanghai • Hachette Livre Headquarters, Vanves • EDF Offices, Tours • Euralille Offices, Lille • Claude Bernard Offices, Paris • Shopping center Pacific, Shanghai • Sulwhasoo Flagship Store, Hong-Kong • Piper-Heidsieck Headquarters, Reims • Offices Building Les reflets du Drac, Grenoble • RATP Offices, Paris • Commercial Court, Nice • SAGEP Water treatment Plant, Joinville-le-Pont • Total Energie Offices, Toulouse
Mobility:
• The Greater Paris Metro Stations, Paris • Bridge, Choisy • T9 tramway maintenance and warehousing center, Orly • Tramway maintenance and warehousing center, Bordeaux • Airbus Delivery Centre, Toulouse • « Green Eye » Carpark, Soissons • Air France Maintenance Hub, Roissy • Tramway maintenance and warehousing center, Valenciennes • Tenesol Head Office and Factory, Toulouse • Renault Vehicule Testing Facility, Guyancourt
Education / Research:
• Collège de France, Paris • International French School of Beijing, Beijing • Marcel Saupin House of Human Sciences, Nantes • Louis Jouvet High School, Gamaches • Isomer Laboratories, Nantes • INRIA Laboratories, Paris • Interregional Laboratories, Oullins • Rehabilitation Center, Pont d'Héry • Zhuqiao High School, Jiading • University library and building, Lille • Ecole des Mines Research Centre, Evry
Culture / Leisure / Sport:
• CO’Met - Arena, congress and convention center, Orléans • International congress center, Shanghai • La Tuilerie Cultural Center, Limoux • Arena Restructuration, Lunel • Aqualagon Waterpark, Marne-la-Vallée • French Pavillon at the Shanghai World Expo • Eric Tabarly Sailing museum • Emigration Museum, Tourouvre • Multi-purpose Hall, Le Cannet • Palace Heritage Museum, Xi’An
Residential/Hotel:
• La Mantilla Residential Buildings, Montpellier • Jardins de la Lironde Residential Complexe, Montpellier • Matinha Residence and Hotel, Lisbon • Tour Lumière, Tours • 4* Eco-residence for Leisure Activities, Cap d'Agde • Housing Complexe, Romainville
Clients
• 3M • AEFE Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères • Air France • Airbus • Amore Pacific / Sulwhasoo • BNP Paribas RE • Bouygues Construction • Bouygues Immobilier • CCI de Nice • Champagnes Piper & Charles Heidsieck • China Fortune Properties • COFRES SAS • Collège de France – OPPIC • Communauté d’Agglomération du Pays de Lorient • Communauté d’Agglomération du Soissonnais • Communauté de Communes du Haut Perche • Communauté de Communes du Limouxin • Communauté Urbaine de Bordeaux • Compagnie de Phalsbourg • Conseil Départemental de la Somme • CPAM du Morbihan • Covico • DDE de Loire-Atlantique • DDE Des Alpes-Maritimes • EDF • Editions Hachette Livre • Eiffage Travaux Publics • Fayat Immobilier • Fondation Arc-en-Ciel • Geoxia • Global Century Exhibition & Travel Development • Groupe Giboire • Groupe Blot Pierre Promotion • Groupe Hydro Building Systems • Groupe Legendre • Groupe Proméo • Groupe SNI • Housing Development Department of Qingpu District • Hudson Advisors • ICADE • Ile-de-France Mobilité • Jinqiao Lingang • Lafarge Holcim • Ligne Roset • Loire Océan Métropole Aménagement • Lujiazhui Group • Métropole Rouen Normandie • Mines ParisTech • Ministère de la Justice • Ministère de l’Economie des Finances et de l’Industrie • Mutuelle des Motards • Nacarat • Naval Group • Nexity • Orléans Métropole • Pitch Promotion • Poste Immo • PSA • RATP – SEDP • Rectorat de l’Académie de Lille • Régie des Transports de Marseille • Région Occitanie • Renault SA • SADEV 94 • SAGEP • SDIS 44 • SERM Aménagement • SEMDO • Semurval • SET • Shanghai East Bund Investment Group • Shanghai Huanyu Pacific Digital • Shanghai Jiading Administration Committee • Shanghai Land • Shanghai Municipal Leading Group for Development of Huangpu River Banks • Société du Grand Paris • SOGEPROM • Tenesol • The Carlyle Group • Urbiparc Management • Villages Nature (Pierre et Vacances / Disney) • Villamoura World • Ville de Boulogne-Billancourt • Ville du Cannet • Ville de Lunel • Ville de Nancy • Ville de Paris • Ville de Saint-Germain-en-Laye • We Love Green • Woodeum • Xi’An Qujiang Daming Palace Heritage
Ferrier Marchetti Studio is a unique studio combining research and practice in a quest for innovation and urban delight. Our process and design explore a new urban condition, finding and developing opportunities for cities to contribute positively to the planet's eco balance and create a positive relationship between climate and design. Our architecture is not just about designing objects, but about the opportunities that design offers to create positive and meaningful relationships between buildings and people, contributing to a more holistic, sustainable and sensual world.
Sensual City Papers appears as a free contribution to the debate on rethinking the city:
Throughout the ages and in all cultures, decor has come to express and reflect human society. Polysemic, the medium of many imagination...
Environmental awareness, real estate pressure, recalling landscapes, evolving mentalities in terms of production and consumption… Activ...
Let’s stop building! At a time when it is necessary for cities to drastically reduce their carbon footprint, the intelligent and limite...
Everywhere in the Mediterranean arc, the same questions are being asked, concerning environmental risks, the intensification of uses an...
The desire for an office reappears, transformed, at the very moment when its detractors were predicting its certain death. This is an o...
The question of children in the city has often been approached through the prism of the playful city, and in particular the production ...
For the general public, conventional modes of drawing are abstract. The fictional approach is the one that best reflects the reality to...
To meet the challenge of urban resilience, architecture must give meaning to sustainable ways of living. The balcony is that in-between...
What lasts is what can change. Three examples of constructed situations (ageing of the French population, growing precariousness of stu...
A selection of publications that’ve been edited by the studio:
2023, 12×18,5 cm, Sensual City Books
Réel 2023-1993 is the visual counterpart of the book Essais. It inventories the entirety of the projects the office ever built over the past thir...
2021, 12×18.5 cm, Sensual City Books
Essays 2020-1996 retraces Jacques Ferrier's architectural, urban and intellectual thought through 20 texts compiled in an anti-chronological mann...
2021, 13.3 cm × 18.5 cm, 144 Pages, L'Herne ed.
The pandemic has revealed the inability of cities to take care of their inhabitants. Based on this observation, this essay questions the dominant...
2018, 15×21 cm, 184 pages, JOVIS ed.
Thresholds are anthropological constants: they can be found in every culture and every era. Like limits and borders, they express one of humanity...
2016, 180×28.5 cm, 8 leporello, Sensual City ed.
Between August 17 and September 14, 2015, we went on eight walks, each taking place within a clearly defined area measuring precisely one square ...
2015, 26.5×20cm, 228 pages, Archibooks ed.
The book examines the Mediterranean urban ensemble through uses, sensations, atmospheres and emphasizes the how, from Genoa to Barcelona 10 milli...
2013, 20.5×12.5 cm, 120 pages, Arlea ed.
We are experiencing a profound changes in the urban way of life, a changes that affect most of the population and the entire planet. These change...
2008, 19×30 cm, 264 pages, L'Arsenal ed.
The architecture for a "sustainable society" is a great opportunity for the renewal of architecture and of its very place in our global society. ...
2005, 25×16.6 cm, 148 pages, AAM ed. - Ante Prima ed.
The project is experimenting with the most innovative building technologies adapted to the new ways of working, while ensuring from an energy poi...
2004, 16×24 cm, 256 pages Ante Prima ed.
Built on the metaphor of a train journey, the book lets images parade: "I am looking for a simple and direct response to the programme and a cons...
2000, 17×24 cm, 288 pages, Passage Piétons ed.
Anonymous, often modest buildings, industrial constructions, technical facilities and infrastructures: all sorts of objects, signs and images con...
2007, 19×30 cm, 144 pages, Ante Prima ed.
This book presents the development of two projects for an environmental skyscraper of a new generation. It is not an exercise in style, but rathe...
2010, 24×16 cm, 2008 pages, Archibooks ed.
Following a 2009 colloquium at the Collège de France Paul Ardenne, Alin Corbin, Michel Hoessler, Anne Lacaton, Christian de Portzamparc, Philipp...
To learn more about our research content, please visit our Sensual City archive