Liberté

Liberté is the third and penultimate site in the Empreintes call for projects. The Liberté project will weave new paths around landscaped "îlots de fraicheur" (cool islands), in continuity with the future Promenade République, and renew the way people live in La Défense.

The Liberté site

Located in Puteaux, to the south of and below the La Défense esplanade, in the immediate vicinity of the Défense Plaza and Carré Michelet towers and the town center. The site is at the interface of emblematic new tertiary programs such as The Link and Silver Island.

The jury for the Liberté site met in February 2024 and selected the Quartus consortium as the winning project.

The project

Over and above its architectural and landscaping vocation, this project acts as a mediator between these two contrasting worlds. This project "repairs the city" and gives back to this road space, impassable for pedestrians, a use conducive to strolling, living, working, meeting and rediscovering notions of pleasure and the City on the edge of Europe's largest business district.

4 harmonious emergences for mixed-use programming

The group proposes to diversify the uses of the first floors to make these areas dynamic, and the programming will include, for example: a café tiers-lieu, one or two restaurants, a convenience store, a doctor's surgery, a gym, a bicycle and soft mobility repair area, and a concierge service. Buildings 2 and 3 have been designed with sustainability and reversibility in mind, offering considerable flexibility and adaptability in their future use. The reversibility of office space has been studied here as co-living accommodation or as a hotel. Residential buildings 1 and 4 can be reversed if they are maintained in the residential category: as co-living accommodation or, for example, as a senior residence.

The planned activities are proposals made in 2023. Delivery is scheduled for 2030/2031, and the consortium will be working on an open-innovation basis to ensure that the commercial program is defined in a way that is coherent with the surrounding environment.

In the middle of these buildings, "gaps" will allow for the development of public spaces, encouraging pedestrian traffic and soft mobility, and creating places dedicated to biodiversity and real reserves, including nesting boxes, perches and green roofs.

Art at the heart of the project

The grouping is part of the cultural dynamic of Paris La Défense, and proposes to extend the open-air museum by taking advantage of the landscaping and the presence of nature to allow art to inscribe itself in the interstices of urban development. Thematic, visual and/or colorful reminders will trace a veritable artistic path through the project's exterior and interior spaces, fulfilling their function as a seam and link between the top and bottom of the site and between the site and La Défense. The place of art and culture in the project will be imagined with and for the site's inhabitants and future users, through a vote for the choice of works, the co-design of a work, or even ≪ yarn bombing ≫ (also known as urban knitting, consists in covering urban furniture with knitted or crocheted yarn), to dress the trees in winter.

The project is configured in the shape of a triangle, bounded by two distinct riverbanks. The site's topography and pedestrian flows require the creation of links between these two banks. The aim is to bridge the differences in level and provide easy access to all parts of the site.

A low-carbon project

The project today guarantees RE2028 and anticipates RE2031 requirements with a bold, innovative vision.

The construction project has been drawn up with an emphasis on wood construction, capitalizing on advances in the sector. It has been designed with an ≪components approach ≫, integrating the maximum possible number of elements manufactured off-site. Indeed, the project is aiming for an off-site manufacturing rate of over 30%, reuse is also integrated into the strategy.

With the aim of meeting low-carbon ambitions, the consortium took the initiative of sharing parking spaces right from the early design phases. This involved sharing parking spaces with those already available in the La Défense district. This avoided the need to build an underground parking lot, a solution that is often costly in terms of energy and resources.

The consortium

Leader: Quartus
Architects: Baumschlager Eberle Architectes / Itar Architectures
Landscape architect: Wald
Engineering firms: Artelia / INEX / Socotec
Off-site consulting and reuse: Hors site Conseil / R-USE
Programming: Bérénice
Prefiguration: Beaux-Arts consulting
Construction economist: AE75