At La Bastide near Montpellier, architects Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés have combined striking new-build with the sensitive rework of a 1983 Marc Held building. We talk to Project Director Stefan Tuchila about working with the legacy of a design icon and the aesthetic of rusty steel.

How did Marc Held’s building inform your approach to the brief and the site?

The original La Bastide was designed as the social heart of a first-generation business park, which is today being reinvented by client Covivio as a European ‘Silicon Valley’. Held’s buildings functioned mainly as a canteen and kitchen, and consisted of two interconnected rustic stone ‘villas’ with Roman tile roofs and shaded inner cloisters with massive timber columns. We’ve created a third volume, also organised around a courtyard, that adds fitness and wellbeing amenities, an auditorium, new restaurants and meeting rooms.

Why did you choose a corten-like finish as part of the project – and where and how did you use it at La Bastide?

We were looking for a material, rather than a colour, for the metalwork across the project. Held’s architecture has an earthy, vernacular quality in symbiosis with the landscape, and the rusty metal look was a way of speaking to the existing context. We wanted a unifying material that would bring together the old buildings and our new interventions.

Our new facades, for instance, use local white and grey stone rubble in gabion baskets – in conversation with the materiality of Held’s original dry stone walls. Because the project’s primary materials are all very porous, we were very aware of weathering issues with real rusted steel. So to avoid staining and discolouration we chose the stability of a powder finish for window frames, balustrades and cladding.

Was the finish used internally as well as externally?

Yes, it was used like a self-finish inside and outside – partly because in the climate of the South people live outside a lot, so continuity between outside and inside spaces is really important. Our retrofit of the old buildings included punching some bigger openings to gain light and views across the Mediterranean parkland, and we also replaced the existing windows with powder-coated frames. In our new building, the rusty finish becomes a feature of the shaded open-air atrium and also the planted roof landscape, which provides space for the business park’s occupiers to congregate and relax with far-reaching views.  

At La Bastide, Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés used Alesta® SD in Timeless Rust. To find out more click here.