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A 12-story wood building rises in the EuroRennes neighborhood

The result of a private project of architect Thierry Soquet and taken on by developer Lamotte partnered with Architecture Plurielle (Rennes), the “Horizons Bois” project will be inaugurated in Rennes in 2020. A demonstration of the French wood industry, the passive building will house three stories of offices and 48 housing units available for purchase on the upper nine stories, for a total of 5,555 m2 of floor area. The entire load-bearing structure and floors will be made of wood and built around a concrete core.
The building’s diversity can be found in its uses, its wood-concrete materials and in the varieties chosen for its construction. Thierry Soquet explains: “Horizons Bois highlights one material – wood – in all its forms: structure, insulation, decoration, layout, etc. The varieties and local products will be showcased to meet a ‘zero-carbon objective’. We used beech for the structure, chestnut for the siding, Douglas fir for the terraces and spruce for the external wall insulation.”
A symbol of innovation and modernity, this building is also purported to be the centerpiece of the environmental objectives that the city of Rennes has set for itself. Mrs. Nathalie Appéré, the mayor of Rennes, reminded us in a press release that this project is helping to fulfill the “ambition of Rennes 2030: a sustainable city that bets on architectural quality”. That’s why this building will also be passive. Thierry Soquet sees Horizon Bois as “the de-carbonized construction of the future, that is virtuous and taking care of future generations,” with its vertical garden, large green terraces, a windowed south façade to capture as much energy as possible, and measurements of the life cycle and carbon balance.