Beaumont Eurorennes Buildings / Atelier Kempe Thill + Atelier 56S

Formal Urban Planning - Rennes, France, the capital of Brittany, has initiated several large urban development projects, the most spectacular of which is the reorganization of the entire train station area with the ZAC (Zone d’aménagement concerté) EuroRennes, including the completely new construction of the main train station. This development is the logical consequence of the connection of Rennes to the TGV high-speed railway network to Paris, 350 kilometers away, with a journey time of just 100 minutes and trains running every hour. The station area has therefore increased significantly in value and given a real boost to the city’s urban development. The French railway company SNCF has freed up a wide swathe of ​​land along the tracks and is gradually selling it to the highest-bidding project developers. The city has founded a semipublic urban development company that links the allocation of land to competitions in which the design of the team of architects plays a decisive role. This is an attempt to ensure urban and architectural quality. The FGP team of Philippe Gazeau and Louis Paillard, in collaboration with Agence Ter, was chosen as the master planner of the entire area. The master plan assumes that individual buildings stand next to each other as loose volumes similar to urban villas and smaller high-rise buildings, thereby creating an open city impression despite high urban density. The buildings form classic streets and squares. In addition, the master plan requires all buildings to have façades that slope in both plan and section, including façades that are designed to overhang in a “rock-like” manner to create an organic and sculptural effect. Atelier Kempe Thill, together with the Rennes-based architectural firm Atelier56S, were invited by the client Legendre Immobilier to the competition for the Beaumont construction site directly opposite the train platforms.