Holcim Visitor Workshop
A visitor workshop for Holcim's Siggenthal cement plant, conceived as a pure structure. It is built almost entirely from CPC - Carbon Prestressed Concrete - thin, prefabricated concrete plates pre-tensioned with carbon-fibre reinforcement. Because the carbon carries the tension in place of steel, the plates can be remarkably slender and need no protective concrete cover, and they go up quickly through a dry plug-in system of prefabricated panels. Here the technology is pushed to its edge: large, interconnected volumes carried by unusually slender supports. The cores are cast in biochar concrete, an IPCC-recognised carbon-sink technology, with water circuits that also temper the interior. A filigree skin of semi-transparent photovoltaic panels wraps the whole, a deliberate counterpoint to the mineral mass within.
- Architect
- Quentin Ferry & Quentin Latour Dauvergne
- Role
- Project leader
- Programme
- Museum, workshop, events, conference
- Area
- 1,100 m²
- Construction
- CPC carbon-prestressed concrete frame, PV & glass facade
- Phase
- Open competition (SIA 142)
