18 months after the start of works, the GA Group completes the Thales Campus in Bordeaux-Mérignac.
Designed by architect Jean-Philippe Le Covec, the Thales Campus was constructed by GA in Bordeaux Mérignac. The 60,000-square metre complex is now ready to accommodate the more than 2,600 employees of the Airborne Systems and Thales Avionics activities.
“It is a campus where workplaces are designed for users’ comfort, with patios, natural lighting, and generously glazed shared spaces,” explains architect Jean-Philippe Le Covec. “It is also a technological domain — 28,000 sq m of test stand premises with a very advanced technical aspect.”
Designed to improve occupiers’ performance and well-being, the campus includes nine buildings at the heart of a landscaped park:
- At the entrance to the site is a building dedicated entirely to reception and services, which houses a company restaurant, a business centre, a space dedicated to the works council, a concierge desk, a showroom and several meeting rooms.
- The seven office buildings are connected by a “technological boulevard”, an internal street designed to encourage employees to move around from one building to another and foster interaction. There is a common ground floor where Thales’s production and final integration spaces are located.
- The site’s building services are concentrated in another building.
- The campus has a leafy car park with parking place for 1,700 cars and another 250 places for bicycles and motorcycles.
The ultra-modern campus boasts high environmental quality and is certified with the HQE® and BREEAM labels.
Thanks to GA’s unique construction method, the project was completed in just 18 months, in accordance with the group’s commitment.
Construction works on the Thales Campus in Bordeaux started as soon as the contract was signed in January 2015, for handover on 31 July 2016, despite two months of bad weather. We were able to meet this tight timetable thanks to the project's BIM environment and the industrial production of the concrete structure and the opaque and glazed parts of the facades in our factories. The project's strength lies in its adaptability and its potential to evolve in the future as Thales's needs and requirements change.
Construction was carried out using the FullBIM process, a process developed by the GA Group which features a 3D digital model offering a unique level of knowledge of the buildings at every stage of the project. The model, in which all the information related to the buildings and their operation is compiled, was handed over to the Thales teams at the completion of construction. This digital avatar of the Campus will enable them to operate the site as efficiently as possible.
The Thales Campus in Bordeaux voted best BIM project of the year 2016, at the word level, all categories considered equally
This year the 73 winners of the BIM Awards from all over the world competed with each other for the international Tekla prize. The Tekla Global BIM Awards spotlight bold projects that stand out for the impressive design and construction of their structures.
A jury composed of experts in the sector designated the winners in each category of real estate project (commercial property, public, industrial, infrastructures, sport and leisure, and student projects). Each prize rewarded an innovative use of BIM technologies.
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