Key facts

  • Date

    18 June 2026

  • By

    Bouygues Construction's Press Department

  • Category

    Press release

Reducing material consumption in the construction sector

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The École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and Bouygues Construction join forces to design the construction systems of the future


At the 2026 Viva Technology exhibition, the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (ENPC) and Bouygues Construction, two leading players in construction, engineering, and innovation in France and on the international stage, signed a collaboration agreement to develop a new generation of optimised structural systems that reduce material consumption in construction. In a context that combines ecological transition and increasing resource scarcity, this partnership is intended to promote more sustainable construction methods that balance technical performance, industrial competitiveness and lower construction-related carbon emissions. It addresses this urgent issue through two objectives: both reducing the quantities of materials required for construction and improving and streamlining the processes involved in construction projects (cost, quality and lead times). The agreement was signed at an official ceremony on Thursday, 18 June at 11:30 am by Anthony Briant, Director of the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, and Pierre-Éric Saint-André, Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Construction.

Research on innovative and industrially viable solutions

This collaboration agreement builds on the work that the two partners have already undertaken in the field of digital industrial manufacturing.

The ENPC and Bouygues Construction teams will combine their scientific, technological and industrial expertise to develop new design and manufacturing approaches based on automation, including robotics, 3D printing and generative design tools. These technologies allow for the design of optimised structures that use only the necessary amount of material to achieve the required technical performance.

For Bouygues Construction, the partnership will involve the Design to Build Lab, the Material Lab (R&DI) and Scale One®. In ENPC’s case, it will involve the Navier laboratory, as well as the Build’In® and Thinkshell® technology teams from the Co-Innovation Lab.

The collaboration also includes several projects that have already been carried out jointly, including doctoral research involving Scale One® and the Navier Laboratory, as well as a European project focusing on an innovative method for reinforcing soils and embankments.

Steps to identify the most promising solutions

In the first phase of the partnership, the focus will be on identifying which building systems could benefit from these new technologies and assessing their potential technical, industrial and economic potential.

For every solution that is identified, the partners will then draw up technical specifications and carry out a market survey to define research priorities, deployment conditions and the key challenges to address.

Following this exploratory phase, and subject to favourable results, ENPC and Bouygues Construction will go on to launch co-development projects to validate these innovations through a trial stage close to real-world use.