Owner
Lodève City
Architect
Carole Duru, Isabelle Berthet-Bondet & Alexandre Senac
Product
250 m² de SageGlass Climaplus Classic
Completed
2019

THE CHALLENGE

The creation of a new media center in Lodève – which involved the restoration of a nineteenth-century high school and the building of an annex on the former schoolyard – is the first step in creating a large cultural institute called "Confluence". This project is supported by the Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée region and received the silver competition medal from ADEME, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency.

The media center was designed to be a very open space with glass walls bringing clarity and light to the building’s interior and showcasing the beauty of the surrounding site. These windows also open the building onto the city, making the cultural center visible and appealing. However, opening onto the natural environment could not come at the expense of comfort or energy performance, if the building was to meet the requirements of the French HQE (High Environmental Quality) and BBC Effinergie Rénovation standards. This made solar protection a must, particularly as the town is surrounded by hills, making it extremely hot in summer and very cold in winter.

 

THE SOLUTION

SageGlass glazing was the ideal solution for maintaining the blind-free glazed aesthetic while controlling glare and heat gain – and of the lowering the building's energy consumption as a result. By darkening or lightening depending on external light, the glazing allows maximum natural light to flood the building’s interior, guaranteeing its occupants’ thermal and visual comfort.

The media center has a strong identity, thanks to a light wooden substructure that fosters a warm, attractive feel, a sunshade that screens the sun on the south side, and dynamic SageGlass glazing installed on the western facade and in an atrium. The latter allows the media center to be truly innovative and eschew the use of blinds, which would have compromised the architects’ desired design and required extensive maintenance.

 

THE BENEFITS

The solutions combine to create a building with a distinctive architectural design that offers year-round comfort and minimal energy consumption.

The BDO (Occitania Sustainable Building) initiative, an educational tool to support and evaluate environmental, social and economic aspects of construction in keeping with the region’s architectural traditions, welcomed the choice of SageGlass glazing for the renovation of this old building.