The architectural firm of CDA Architectes designed Agua, the head office of the GA Group, first and foremost to ensure employees’ thermal, acoustic, visual and ergonomic comfort.
The space organization, with open-space offices, a large number of meeting rooms, and convivial areas where employees can get together, was designed to foster teamwork. Agua – the 1st tertiary building with the BEPOS Effinergie® label in France.
The building boasts actual energy consumption of less than 25 kWh per m² per year for the equipment related to comfort (heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and domestic hot water). This performance was achieved through bioclimatic architectural design and ultra efficient equipment. Energy consumption is made up for by photovoltaic panels integrated in the roof coupled with geothermal heating and cooling.
Any unconsumed energy that is left over is re-injected into a Smart Grid set up for the buildings in the La Plaine industrial estate in Toulouse.
Agua – An incubator of GA technologies
Agua is also a technical and technological feat. The programme was first designed using “Full BIM”, a 3D digital model developed by GA. The components of the building’s structure and façade as well as its equipment were then manufactured in two GA factories in Labège, near the construction site, and transported to the site, where they were assembled. The 3,500-m² building was constructed in just 7 months thanks to this unique construction process. Agua is the forerunner of a new generation of intelligent offices. It is monitored and configured in real time by the GA Group’s consumption-tracking software Galaxy Pilot®. Connected to close to 4,000 captors positioned throughout the building, Galaxy Pilot® does not simply execute – it is intelligent. Thanks to the 16,000 pieces of information it receives every second, it learns from employees’ behaviour and integrates their habits, and can also take weather forecasts into account.
In addition, employees are provided with a smartphone application which allows them to coordinate the parameters of their comfort by adjusting the heating and lighting while at the same time controlling the quality of the indoor air.
© Marie-Hélène Carcanague
A technological gem, Agua allowed us to test the Group's latest innovations to optimize our teams' comfort and performance. We have a conviction: tertiary real estate must be at the service of companies' performance. To work well it is imperative to feel good. Agua is the symbol of this conviction. With Agua we have embarked on the construction of a new generation of offices where it is pleasant to live and work, with high quality working spaces.
