ShAKe

An ecosystem at the heart of the Euralille dynamic

ShAKe is a shared property complex [SHARE], predominantly tertiary in nature [WORK] where nature and city, economy and social life, work and relaxation come together.  ShAKe favors encounters between young start ups and established companies, decompartmentalizing work spaces and vital moments, opening its doors to the surrounding environment. The innovative form of the consultation, and the new challenges provided by work spaces have led PCA-STREAM to design the programming of this project around a multi-disciplinary team that, right from the very beginning, has included the main user, the Caisse d’Épargne Hauts de France. With over 30,000 m² available, ShAKe provides offices along with a range of services, catering, an incubator, urban agriculture and even a cultural and artistic space. It is located at the heart of the Euralille district, a hyper-hub that is closely connected to large European markets. Currently in the midst of reinventing and intensifying itself through the Euralille 3000 project, it is the symbol of the dynamic nature of the Lille metropolis, where ShAKe has naturally found its home. It forms an ecosystem that is capable of responding to ways of living and working, firmly anchored in the city of the 21^st century.

Reinventing the office building

ShAKe reinvents the office building by adapting itself to the societal trends that have modified ways and spaces of work: decompartmentalizing our existences, moving from a logic of ownership to one of use and sharing, while at the same time developing ideas of collaborative community and economy. The office building is shifting from a rigid and autocratic structure to an open, flexible and generous ecosystem, providing spaces for resources and services to its users and to the area’s inhabitants. Much more nomadic and collaborative in nature, the work inserts itself into multiple lifetimes. This tendency has led firms to choose more vital places, paying more attention to the comfort of their employees, providing pleasant and convivial shared spaces. The offer of new working spaces, known as “third places” or tiers lieux in French, takes its inspiration from the hotel model, accompanied by a desire and intention to mix populations and to open things up to a wider public. A growing number of companies are also looking for an alternative to the burden of a long term lease. ShAKe embodies immaterial value and the economy of functionality by provding schemes of occupation that are better adapted to professional nomadism. The occupants can use the available surfaces for longer or shorter terms, with the reversibility of the spaces also allowing the transformation over time.

Architectural morphogenesis

ShAKe has been modeled according to the opportunities provided by the site in such a way as to ingeniously rise to the challenge of its constraints. The analysis of the context (wind, access, infrastructure, noise, pollution) has allowed PCA-STREAM to develop a pertinent and high performance form. The slenderness of the southern facade contributes to turning the building into a figure of prowess for the district, while the opposite side proposes a softer frontality to the park of the Dondaines.  ShAKe provides a unique figure to its neighborhood; a spiral that climbs in flights of tree lined terraces culminating in a belvedere. This silhouette ensures optimal energy performances, all while offering a remarkable level of comfort to users: the building participates in the creation of an oasis of freshness in the neighborhood, with its trees regulating atmospheric pollution and emphasizing biodiversity, with the terraces providing protection from sound pollution coming from the periphery and with the exposition of the interior spaces to natural light being heavily emphasized. These different forces have naturally resulted in the proposition of a building-boardwalk, whose spiral form shows itself to be an optimal response to the challenges of the site and to the programmatic ambition. The perched trees and the terraces, open to all, provide the building with its exceptional character.

Reinterpreting a form through new functions

An ecological corridor invites the Parc des Dondaines into the building with the climbing boardwalk that spreads up into the roof ensuring a continuity between nature and construction. ShAKe becomes a boardwalk building that delivers on contemporary ecological and urban values: heightened environmental standards, a porosity of the frontier between the public and private sectors, a quality of life in dense spaces and takes advantage of the attractive nature of shared spaces. The building places this ascension at the heart of its logic, with the value of accessibility, the logic of urban continuity and a tailored intervention in the landscape. The terraces of the ShAKe offer a significant variety of uses, certain directly connected to the programming department, with others being totally open to the public. They are linked through a generous stairwell that regulates access to the terraces depending on whether they are intended to be open to the public or reserved for users. The spaces for offices and co-working, and the incubator can function outside, for the organization of informal meetings, lunches and events; the creche provides children with a secure open air space; the sports programmes propose open air activities.

A shared space that opens out onto the city

For users, office buildings must become places that unify and federate, places that are open to the surrounding neighborhood. ShAKe is a social hive, open 24/7 where one can work, eat, relax, have fun and cultivate one’s interests. It provides a wide range of services but doesn’t reserve them solely for its occupants. It offers, to neighbors and city alike, services that are normally hidden within a third party building, notably a creche, sports facilities, an auditorium with its business center, a car park that is managed in collaboration with the neighborhood, but also a food court, a restaurant and vegetable gardens on the roofs. Improving users’ quality of life is combined here with the idea of becoming a space for life to be lived in, and encounters to be made, for the surrounding neighborhood, thus contributing to the dynamic nature of Euralille. This urban apparatus is based on the networking of spaces via the boardwalk but also through its forecourt, enhanced by a slight slope that creates a link between park and terraces. It opens out onto the working café, proposes catering areas and could also host artworks. Its generous steps could provide a place for meeting, relaxation or even for urban sport. It extends into the building via its counterpart, “the village square”. A space of transit but also of relaxation and rest, this area deploys all of the building’s functions and constitutes the nodal point of its activity. ShAKe thus provides a unique model of building-boardwalk, combining environmental qualities with public accessibility along with an exemplary integration into its surrounding urban setting.

Informations