DONNAY Martin Monday, January 31th
GRAAS Marine
MONDET Mathieu
BOUDOT Florent
Intermediate report:
Grande Halle renovation
School year 2010/2011
Summary
Part A: Presentation Of The Project And Our Way Of Working ...... 3
I- Presentation of the project “Grande Halle renovation” 3
II- How did you manage the project up until now? 5
III- The skills used 6
Part B: The Solutions Proposed 7
I- The different spaces 7
II- Some concepts of module (mobile rooms) 9
a. The meetings’ canvas 9
b. Module with rigid and removable walls 10
c. Module with inflatable partitions 11
Part C: Conclusion 13
Bibliography 13
Part A: Presentation Of The Project And Our Way Of Working
I- Presentation of the project “Grande Halle renovation”
The ”Grande Halle” building seen by satellite (Google maps)
The former slaughterhouses, located between the Austrasie Boulevard and the Meurthe bank, take up a surface of five hectares. They are made up of several buildings: the two “Octrois” buildings, the “Grande Halle” and the “Petite Halle“. All those buildings, built in 1912, were abandoned few decades ago. Although they are situated in a lively district, they are still left apart, particularly the “Grande Halle”.
This is the reason why the city of Nancy decided to restore this large building. Indeed, the nearby engineering schools are claiming for new work-spaces. However, this building needs to be entirely renovated to be suitable. So far, only the outer structures of this building (the fundaments, the metallic roof with the thermal insulation) are planned to be renovated by next year, but a project has been set up to imagine the inner structures.
Thus, a group of ten students has been formed to work on this project called GAIA during a complete year. We all belong to three nearby engineering schools: two students from the ENSA (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture), four from the ENSGSI (Ecole Nationale Supérieure en Génie des Systèmes Industriels) and four from the EEIGM (Ecole Européenne d'Ingénieurs en Génie des Matériaux), which are among the schools that are going to use the restored “Grande Halle” building.
Having students from different schools enables the combination of various skills: a very important tool in such a creative project. This has obviously become a multidisciplinary project.
In order to breathe new life into the neighbourhood and to provide various work-spaces for the local schools, the inner building must be designed according to different expectations. The project has to focus on several points:
· Be a convenient place for engineering students who will use this place for creative and scientific purposes: work-spaces for small (project teams) or large groups (meetings) as well as workshops for architecture students. The three schools should find interest in the future innovation centre.
· Be able to gather students, researchers, teachers and local firms: conferences, ideas sharing. The structures need to be designed according to all the different uses that will take place in this building.
· Be an example of sustainable development: appropriate choice of materials in terms of insulation and recycling. This is a really important point for an innovation centre: it must lead the way to other similar buildings.
Arouse everyone's curiosity, particularly the inhabitants' district: exhibitions such as new technologies or material exhibitions for instance.
The key word given to this project is “innovation”. In other words: imagining innovative concepts and structures. Our first ideas led us to the design of modular structures that must be independent, temporal and eco-friendly. Those structures have to suit the expectations of the users. For instance, the users should be able to convert several small spaces into one large space or the opposite. This is an important point as the building should include many different activities. This also enables people to build their own spaces, the way they like them, in order to create a place in which people feel comfortable and enjoy working in. Moreover, they should foster creative work, providing everything that's necessary to write down ideas and develop them. This is particularly important for project-teams rooms.
II- How did you manage the project up until now?
First of all, we (every members of the project team) began by analyzing the topic and the aim of the project. We wanted to understand very well our subject in order to avoid rushing headlong into the unknown and above all, into a certain failure. So we took time to discuss together and to make some searching especially on the innovative concept and building existing in the world. The team came also to agreement to focus on the modular structure. So few searching were made on it.
Secondly, we organized some meetings in particular with the industrial leader Mrs. Stoeltzlen and with a former participant of the project, M. Steinmetz, in order to have a more precise idea on the topic and to have a glimpse of which had been done before.
Then, after analyzing the subject, we organized together, with every members of the team, our work by installing some intermediate milestones and by sharing out the work.
Concerning us, the students of EEIGM, our work was divided in three steps:
- Studying the structure of the “Grande Halle” and the mechanical constraints relating to it and to the ground.
- Making some concepts for the permanent exhibition material (“Matériauthèque”).
- Going into depth the propositions done by the students of ENSA. Indeed, from the inner organization and different structures (mobile rooms) proposed by them, we had to find the most suitable materials without forgetting the environmental and economical aspect. With these materials, the structures have to be independent in terms of energy.
However, some parts of the work were made by all the team. For instance, we took part into a creativity session with the entire group of Gaia project. This session lasted one morning and its goal was to arouse our imagination. Through our imagination we had to create some new ideas that we had never seen before.
From the beginning, all the members of the project team get on very well and communicate easily. Furthermore, thanks to a communication platform named “wikispaces” we are able to share our ideas, show our work and plan meetings on Fridays where we work altogether on the project or where we discuss ideas.
III- The skills used
As EEIGM students, our studies concern materials and which material suits to which situation. This is the kind of skills that we use in this project. Like the rest of the group, we participate in the creative ideas but we focus our work on the choice of materials that could be used in the modular structures.
In order to do this, we took benefit from the “Choix des Matériaux” course. Like we had done in this course, we tried to find the characteristics that would be needed if this material was used for a specific modular structure. Then, we used “CES Edupack” that gave us a list of available materials. We mainly had to consider the weight, the strength, the price and the ability of being recycled along with other criteria. Every chosen material can be recycled according to the sustainable-development-rule that we had chosen.
Thus, we proposed materials for every structures designed by the architecture students.
Part B: The Solutions Proposed
In this part, we will introduce you the solutions planned for the project. Of course, they concern the inner organisation of the “Grande Halle” building.
Two great hypotheses have been considered:
- The ground can support only 600 kg/m². That implicates no floor and lightness for the materials.
- We must not look for the outside of the “Grande Halle” building. Our study field is only the “Grande Halle” building.
I- The different spaces
In the Grande Halle building, it has been decided by the students of the various concerned schools that there would be numerous different spaces (which would not be the real rooms, to keep the whole modular spirit of the project), to allow the former slaughter houses to become a centre experimentation and exposition concerning innovation.
So, there would be different workspaces, where researchers, industrial people, teachers and the students of the various schools could consult together, or explain their work:
- A big meeting room which can accept about fifty persons (with a stage), so that it is possible to organise conferences between these actors.
- A showroom in which the researchers or the industrialists can expose their innovative works.
- A relaxing space, to be able to discuss in any simplicity after the work.
- Project and meeting rooms so that the students of schools can work together.
- A modelling space, where the architect students can build or expose their models of buildings.
Concerning the material exhibition, it would not be a defined space. It would be a “circulating library” of materials which would be composed by shelf of samples and informative screens situated at different places in the “Grande Halle”.
There would be also obviously traditional and normal spaces in a building: an administrative space, toilets (with showers) and premises. The students of ENSA drew organisation schemes of the inside of the building, exposed below:
1) Organisation according to the solar illumination:
On this scheme, the modelling place, the cafeteria and the administration, which are rooms which need light, are placed in the South, where the Sun is.
2) Intuitive and logical organization of the modules:
Moreover, the students of the architecture school drew sketches and a 3D representation of the inside of the “Grande Halle” building as well, so that we could imagine what would be the building:
II- Some concepts of module (mobile rooms)
The spaces have been defined. Now, we have to find some concepts of room to accommodate these different spaces. Moreover, we have to stick with the modular structure. Thus, we will not talk about rooms but about modules which are, in a way, rooms which can be moved and be disassembled as far as you want.
The students of ENSA made some propositions of module. Among them, there were three main concepts:
- The meetings’ canvas which would be used for the conferences.
- The module with rigid and removable walls.
- The module with inflatable partitions.
We studied these concepts and we chose the suitable material for them (thanks to the software CES Edupack) in keeping in mind that each module has to be independent in terms of energy and respectful of the environment.
a. The meetings’ canvas
One of suggestions done by the students of the architecture’s schools is to do a canvas hanging to benefit from the height under the roof available as you can see on the figure above. The canvas would be hung up thanks to the metal structure of the “Grande Halle”. Thus, the material would be light, flexible but also it would be a good thermal and phonic isolator for our inner comfort.
After some searching we found an interesting material which is used in the new buildings, it is the PTFE (Polytetrafuoroethylene) with 15% of Glass Fibers. The common name is Teflon. This material is opaque, non flammable and resists very well to the humidity. Teflon is not recycling but we can reclaim it for another utilisation. That means it could be converted in another material with lesser quality and functionality reduced. The combination with Glass Fibers allows increasing the strength of the hard-wearing, the strength to the compression and the value of the coefficient of rubbing.
This material has already been used for the roof of some buildings as you can see on the following picture:
b. Module with rigid and removable walls
This module can be opened according to the number of people who want to work into and the need of privacy of the users. Indeed, each wall of this module is independent: it can pivot and it can be removed, as you can see on the figures below:
We found three different materials to build this structure: a wood for the roof and the wall, Plexiglas for the windows and plastic foam for the insulation.
We used the same software as for the others modules to select the best wood. The material must be enough insulator thermal and phonic and as in the case before it’s necessary to minimize the weight and the stiffness. We chose the Douglas, which is often used in the buildings and which presents very interesting features: it’s a material natural, biodegradable, recyclable and which resists well to the chemical and bacteriological attacks. Moreover, 50% of the European production is in France and this cost is weak.
The other material that we searched had to be transparent to allow the path of the light, and light. A lot of thermoplastics polymers match but just the Plexiglas is used for the stiff glass. It presents a lot of advantages in comparison with the glass: it is tougher and more transparent (it transmits until 92% of the visible light).
But it’s needed to isolate the wood: different foams of polymer are available but very flammable and eject toxic particles when they burn. We discovered the Icynene foam which is recyclable, very light (with 99% of air) and an excellent insulator. It is used more particularly in the buildings with positive energy.
Foam Icynene for insulation
c. Module with inflatable partitions
One example of the different modules we can use in the «Grande Halle» building is a module with inflatable partitions. It answers well to the goal to have modular structures. In fact, a module with partition inflatable can be tidied up when we don’t need it and be quickly installed. It allows limiting the cluttered state.
We were searching an inflatable material which could adapt to the height of the room according to the number of people. Indeed, the partitions would be interlocked, thus it could have a variable size (cf figure below).