To envision a technical installation’s adaptability from the get-go when its functional requirements tend to eclipse its architectural qualities may seem too lofty an ideal. Yet, there are urban situations and programs that have a certain interest in providing modifiability. The relocation of the Ille-et-Vilaine provincial fire and rescue service along the banks of the Vilaine in Rennes is one such case. Situated along the right bank, whose urban front needs reinforcement, and facing the Baud plain to the south of the river, now a development zone, the new fire and rescue service is a prototype and harbinger of future constructions and usages. The new facility will integrate a fire station into the provincial fire and rescue services office already present at the site. This offers an opportunity to optimise the workings of this structure and to define the identity of this future neighbourhood. As a result, its architectural presence must rise to the challenge of its operating needs. Because these requirements are not fixed to respond to the institution’s constant evolution, they become a springboard for innovation. The new fire and rescue service building proudly exhibits its formally radical nature because underneath a unifying envelope, it frees up the habitability of its interior spaces. Modules 1.35 meters wide, half an office module, with three standardised 60 x 100 cm windows envelope the post and beam structure. Thus, each room has a minimum of six windows, two below, two at chair height, and two at eye height. This mechanism applies to the offices, the accommodations, and the athletics spaces, thereby facilitating any interior reconfiguration of the building.

It was the manipulation of a non-standard set of specifications that enabled this rationale. While the fire and rescue service’s program required almost 3,900 m2 of built space, the empty space needed for parking and moving vehicles takes up more than 11,700 m2. This adeptly realised inverse ratio of full to void helped us avoid having to sacrifice the urban quality of the riverbanks to the program’s requirements. The built spaces are collected within a sober, two-storey volume that sits along the avenue François Château. This concentrates all traffic operations along the rear of the site. Behind the urban façade, the operational areas of the fire station (on-duty staff areas, accommodations, garages, etc.) are installed in perpendicular fashion. The exterior layout is divided into two parts to facilitate departures; manoeuvring areas are on the one side and the parking areas, on the other. An office tower completes the volume. It is this emergence that announces the future constructions that will make up the skyline of the Baud-Chardonnet development zone in the future.

The “T” shape also helps optimise fluidity and speed of movement within the building, which represents a priority. The core formed by the meeting point of the three axes of the base and the tower represent the project’s functional heart. All the spaces shared by the fire station and the fire and rescue service are developed around this core: the entrance, shared meeting rooms, cafeteria services, spaces for socialising (which represent 173m² of added value for the program) and a terrace facing the Vilaine to the south. Some of these spaces have larger openings. During the day, these curtain façades reveal the intensity of the building’s inner life, and at night, the interplay of openings transforms the volume into a luminous lantern. The building thus becomes a sort of nightlight that testifies to the constant vigilance and dedication of firemen.

Client: Conseil Général d’Ille et Vilaine / Cost: 12.6M€ HT / Surface: 8510 m² buildings + 9 468 m² exterior development / Schedule: 2014 – 2021 / Team: Terrell (Structure and M.E.P.), BMF (Surveyor), Lamoureux (Acoustic), Audatis et Samuel Berrée (OPC)