In July 2019, after one year of works, Ossabois – the GA Group subsidiary specialising in off-site construction of wooden buildings – handed over 17 eco-friendly one- to four-room apartments to ICF Habitat La Sablière.
Standing 500 m from the lake in Enghien les Bains in the Val d’Oise department, the three-storey timber-framed building was designed by Thibault Robert Architectes & Associés (TRAA).
Off-site construction – An environmentally-friendly construction method
GA Group and its subsidiary Ossabois prefer off-site construction because factory-based construction upstream of the work site is consistent with the environmentally responsible reasoning that should now be guiding all property development projects. Leveraging its off-site construction processes, Ossabois designs and produces structural elements to order at its four French plants, and then assembles them on-site. The factory-prepared modules for the apartments in Enghien-les-Bains integrated the various constituent elements, including the exterior joinery, cladding, draught-proofing and insulation materials. This construction process resulted in a significantly shorter construction schedule, as well as reduced noise, dust emissions and traffic at the work site.
An authentically eco-friendly building
The attention paid to our environment is a core focus of this 17-home project in Enghien-les-Bains. The challenge for Ossabois was to build an eco-friendly building with an almost entirely wooden structural frame. This environmental focus is underscored by the property’s restrained design, reflected in the limited number of materials present in the façade. Notwithstanding this sober approach, the project exudes a bold contemporary character, exemplified by the meticulous formalist design and by the regimented positions of the constituent elements of the façades.
Custom solutions to address the project’s strict constraints
The GA subsidiary successfully adapted its expertise for this eco-responsible project, in order to produce timber-framed walls that deliver strong thermal insulation performance while complying with the building’s architectural constraints, such as having a curved shape to blend into the aesthetic concept imagined by the designers; other such constraints have in the past seen Ossabois create custom hybrid wood-and-concrete floors from scratch, window frames and thick wooden cladding, each to unique specifications.