Inauguration of the Australia building, a compendium of innovations to enhance sustainability

03/14/2011 | Release

Inauguration of the Australia building, a compendium of innovations to enhance sustainability

On March 15, 2011, ETDE, Bouygues Construction's Energy and Services division, inaugurated its new head office in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, in the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines district near Paris. The building, which contains a whole battery of technological innovations, is one of the first corporate headquarters in France to be awarded the BBC-Effinergie® label for low-consumption buildings and to receive NF Bâtiments Tertiaires - Démarche HQE® certification (the French high environmental quality standard for tertiary buildings).

Designed by architect Hubert Godet (in conjunction with Studios Architecture for the interior design) and developed by SODEARIF, the property development subsidiary of Bouygues Bâtiment Ile-de-France, the distinctive red-orange colour building, named "Australia", heralds a new phase of urban renewal in Montigny-le-Bretonneux.

The building's realistic innovations and no-frills performance have been made possible by the combination of tried and tested technologies, while applying the principles of overall cost. Carried out by Bouygues Bâtiment Ile-de-France and ETDE, the works were subject to a particularly stringent quality process.

Thanks to a number of factors, including thermal solar panels for air-conditioning, wood-fuelled heating, a double-skin facade, thermal and photovoltaic panels in the roof, chilled beam induction units and natural cooling, the Australia building has a primary energy consumption target of 35 kWh/m2/year after deduction of the solar energy production. The energy management of the complex will be performed using Hypervision®, a specialised software tool developed by ETDE which is designed to supervise global energy efficiency.

With total floor area of 11,813 m2 on 7 levels, ETDE's new headquarters will house 600 employees.

The Australia building won the Constructeo Award 2010 at the SIMI commercial real estate exhibition, presented to the most energy-efficient and environmentally responsible building of the year.

This project is a good illustration of Bouygues Construction's strategy in the area of sustainable construction and renovation and its capacity to develop synergies between its various skills (property development, construction, operation and maintenance), strengthened by additional know-how in financial and legal engineering.

The Group signed the first energy performance contract in France for social housing with LogiRep in December 2010. Meanwhile, Bouygues Construction founded a Research and Teaching Chair in Sustainable Building and Innovation in October 2010. Established in conjunction with three prestigious engineering schools and their respective foundations and funded by the Group, the Chair promotes work in low-carbon technologies, sustainable buildings and sustainable neighbourhoods and towns.

About ETDE
ETDE, the Energy and Services division of Bouygues Construction, designs, installs, maintains and operates energy solutions (power grid Infrastructures, digital  infrastructures, electrical and HVAC engineering, urban services, etc.) and local services (facilities management, industrial maintenance, etc.) to guarantee the sustainability of infrastructures and amenities and improve lifestyle quality. ETDE operates both in France and internationally in the areas of energy, industry, the service sector, transport, the nuclear sector and telecoms.

About SODEARIF
Sodearif is the property development subsidiary of Bouygues Bâtiment Ile-de-France. It is one of the first operators in the sector to have concrete references to its credit with regard to sustainable construction. It now carries out all its projects according to BBC (Low Consumption Building) energy-efficiency standards, whether for public- or private-sector users or investors. Sodearif has specialist know-how relating to complex projects.

Press contacts

Mathieu Carré

+33 (0)1 30 60 66 39

m.carre@bouygues-construction.com

Jessica Swiderski

+33 (0)1 30 60 25 37

j.swiderski@bouygues-construction.com

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