GA Smart Building unveils the site of its future head office as an outstanding example of “off-site” construction

The 6,000 m² building is located in the heart of the Toulouse Aerospace district, the new cultural and economic hub of the capital of Occitania, and is a perfect illustration of GA Smart Building’s know-how in terms of off-site construction. The Group is a pioneer in off-site construction in France, and believes that its approach to construction represents the future of property investment and construction, a sector that has still not yet undergone its own industrial revolution, and is facing a number of challenges.

By industrialising the construction process, it ensures the highest quality of workmanship. All the components of the building have been modelled in BIM, a 3D model of the building that makes it possible to create a digital avatar of the project. Structural elements, façades, amenities and even sanitary modules have then been manufactured in the Group’s French factories. They were then transported, and are currently being assembled “on site”.

The talented pair of architects, Takaharu Tezuka and Orash Montazami, have designed the future headquarters of GA Smart Building in the belief that off-site construction contributes to architectural quality and user comfort. “We played around with off-site GA processes to provide a contextual response that puts life and nature at the core of our urban and architectural thinking. Architectural punctuations and volumetrics trace the sequences of an architecture with slender, dancing lines that proudly impose themselves on the scale of a new ‘Piste des géants’ district, and initiates a contemporary dialogue with the ‘Halle de la Machine’ and its amazingly artistic world,” explains Orash Montazami, the founder of Studio Montazami.

This innovative construction method means that reducing the carbon footprint is given consideration throughout the construction process.

The Group uses technical and technological solutions that make it possible to adapt its future headquarters to suit tomorrow’s climate, while continuing to reduce its carbon footprint. Thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning, hybridising local, renewable, low-carbon energies with predictive control also enables the entire system to target excellence in terms of energy consumption. The GA offices built this way will be in line with RE2020 at the 2025 threshold, and will reach an energy performance level which is in line with what is anticipated in 2050 by the French Tertiary Decree to reduce energy consumption.

Off-site construction is also beneficial for the reuse of materials. The future head office of GA Smart Building is a pilot project for the Circolab reuse label, and, as such, makes use of recycling for its false floors, carpets, railings, paint, sound insulation, sanitary module equipment, etc. By allowing for dismantling and reassembly right from the design phase, the model for off-site construction enables the building to become a repository for different materials.

The future headquarters of GA Smart Building will be completed by early 2024 after just 14 months’ work. Reduced deadlines are a major benefit of off-site construction, in addition to reducing inconvenience, waste and urban congestion.

This one-day visit came on the heels of the launch of the association of stakeholders in French off-site construction, designed to bring together all the players in the sector, and the signing by the public authorities of a charter looking to make a public commitment to off-site construction by 2031.

Sébastien Matty, the Chairman of GA Smart Building, spoke during the event: “Off-site construction means the construction industry will undergo its own industrial revolution, both in terms of new construction and refurbishment. What the current crisis shows us is that, in order to build and renovate tomorrow, we need to switch to a new way of thinking, one of industrial precision, economising on materials and reduced construction sites.”