Groupe H Architecture & Ingénierie SA

The Mandate

On 31st May 2012, the Organisation Internationale du Travail (OIT) [International Labour Organisation] selected the winner of the international call for tender for the project management for renovation of the offices of the Bureau International du Travail (BIT) [International Labour Office] in Geneva: the Groupe H – Intertecno consortium. This mandate entails the creation of a preliminary project, a final project and the provision of assistance with calls for tender for various companies. The mandate runs from June 2012 until October 2014.

This renovation project is highly ambitious, not only on account of its scale – being in excess of 110,000m2 – but also with regard to the objectives that have been defined by the client, as follows: “An office of which one can be proud – in the performance of its mandate, whether now or in the future, the BIT is transforming its head office into a working environment that is both socially and environmentally responsible, that reflects its values and facilitates teamwork and dialogue."

For the architects and engineers involved in the project, this visionary mission statement translates roughly into the following:

• The complete redesign of levels 1 to 11 of the Main Building

• The removal of all asbestos from the site

• The bringing of the entire site into compliance with the AEAI

• The insulation of the façades of the Main Building in compliance with the Genevan standards and regulations

• Energy consumption compliant with the Genevan standards and regulations (achieving climate neutrality)

The OIT hopes to finish the majority of this renovation in 2019; the organisation's centenary year.

The Building

The head office of the BIT is the result of collaboration between architects Eugène Beaudouin, Pier Luigi Nervi and Alberto Camenzind with construction having begun in 1969 and work having finished in 1974.

Standing at 44 metres tall, like a large sail on a catamaran, the Main Building houses a large proportion of the organisation's 1,400 employees, distributed across the 11 floors of office space. This large structure rests on two lower buildings located at it each end, with “Groupe Réunions" housed in the south building and Central Services in the north. All of these structures are connected by the famous “Allée des Colonnades", the keystone of the structure designed by Pier Luigi Nervi, comprising 20 ribbed columns, made from roughened Carrara marble concrete.

Concrete will have been Nervi's natural choice for the structure of all of these buildings, a point that has been expressed very assertively, with concrete left visible both in the interior and on the exterior, and used in various forms: polished or roughened, ribbed, in grey, sand-coloured or in white.

An example of this effort to express the quality of concrete as a material, the main façades of the building are covered with cast aluminium shells, almost like a skin, which could have been the work of the sculptor Giacometti. There is now a total confusion of stone and metal; a sort of visual fusion.

The highly repetitive rhythm of this façade engages the onlooker in almost hypnotic contemplation of this network of alveoli, a monument to the glory of constructivism, enjoying its moment of glory in the industrialised countries of the post-war period. The building was designed to suit a style of office labour organisation that was in keeping with the customs and traditions of the period (office allocation and size based on age and rank) and which thus required extreme flexibility with regard to the façade.

As for the lower levels, they feature huge bay windows that contribute to the interior/exterior transparency and highlight the social mission of the International Labour Organisation: welcome (it is a building that is open to the public), dialogue (a space that works to improve conditions for workers) and a tripartite structure (and where states, employers and employees are represented).

The Project

In 1992, Agenda 21 established sustainable development objectives for the 21st century. In 2012, the United Nations held its conference on the same topic, under the name Rio+20.  With this declaration in mind, the OIT wanted to bring its building into the 21st century as well, while still retaining its iconic image. The challenge for the architects and engineers was thus established: to make a building designed more than 40 years ago compatible with sustainable development objectives, while preserving its historical heritage.

The vision of the Groupe H – Intertecno consortium is thus built around the following points:

• Conservation of the visual identity of the façades and improvement of their thermal performance,

• New distribution of offices based on a unique three-window module: “one size for all",

• Creation of a new, representative entrance,

• Enhancement of the library, creating a façade facing onto the Groupe Réunions interior hall,

• Improvement of the spatial relationship between all of the levels of the Groupe Réunions interior hall, by means of the creation of a new staircase,

• Creation of a multi-purpose exhibition hall in place of the current projection room.