Case studies

1- Station F, Paris, France:

1.1 Overview:
Location & context:
Station F is located on southeast Paris, as shown in figure 1 below, on the left bank of the
Seine precisely in the 13th arrondissement of Paris.

Figure 1: Station F location

The 13th arrondissement is a former working-class district, hence, it’s not very touristy.
Today, it is known for its Asian district, the Butte-aux-Cailles district , as well as for the
establishment in the 1990s of the National Library of France on the banks of the Seine.
Due to the presence of numerous towers and apartment buildings of recent construction,
the district presents an original town planning in the capital, which is expressed in
particular at the present time in the Paris Rive Gauche project. the 13th Arrondissement
isn’t, perhaps, the first place that tourists think of when they go to Paris, but it’s where the
work gets done. Because, the district is the location of ‘Station F’, the old railway
structure which was refurbished and given a new lease of life as a hub and home to a
bunch of tech start-ups, the brainchild of telecoms businessman Xavier Niel. The
Financial Times quoted one of the people involved as saying Station F had put France on
the map, which some people might think rather a bold claim, but what it tells you is that
techy stuff is flourishing over there as much as it is over here.
 History of the building:
Station F is an adaptive reuse project of a former rail freight depot previously known as
“la Halle Freyssinet” (thereof the "F" in Station F). The Halle Freyssinet was designed
between 1927 and 1929 by the engineer Eugène Freyssinet and is an outstanding building
made of pre-stressed concrete. The load-bearing structure is exceptionally light thanks to
an innovative technique used to apply the concrete. As a result of this original feature
“rough-cast concrete umbrella” the Halle Freyssinet was listed in the Supplementary
Inventory of Historic Monuments since 2012. The building was initially conceived s and
was connected to the railway network of Austerlitz station in Paris. After being used by
France's National Railway SNCF until 2006, the building lay derelict and fell into
disrepair. Numerous attempts to sell the site for new uses failed; an architectural
competition for a new location for the French Supreme Court was also unsuccessful.
Eventually, on the initiative of Paris-based entrepreneur Xavier Niel, the freight depot
was transformed into a business incubator for 1,000 startups. The local architects
Wilmotte & Associés won the international competition for the development and
conversion of the station area, and finally it was formally open to the public in 2017 by
the French President Emmanuel Macron.

1.2 Design:
Concept & main zones:
Wilmotte & Associés design envisaged the transformation of
the building, taking into account the transformation of the

Figure 3

Figure 2: Station F timeline

neighborhood and the design of the outdoor facilities. By
matching the floor coverings inside and outside the esplanade
on the north side of the building and the tiered garden to the
south, two new side roads have been designed, with a focus on
pedestrians and greenery. These roads will be lined with shops
to both attract local residents and promoting exchanges with
the 3,000 young startups workers who will continuously
inhabit the digital incubator, this way Station F is integrated
Figure 4
into the urban environment. In addition, two transverse covered urban passages were created
for the public, which act as digital window displays, that showcase the digital innovations.
Those passageways aim at forging a strong urban link between two districts that are currently
separated from one another by railway lines. And to break the building’s isolation. They also
divide the building into three parts, as the figure below: Share - Create – Chill, each of which
will have its own specific identity:
1. Share zone: in continuation of the large paved esplanade, the forum for meeting up
and sharing digital skills and technology, it has a « Fab Lab » (with freely accessible
3D printers), a 370-seat auditorium, and rooms for meetings between the young
digital entrepreneurs and their potential external partners (such as lawyers, bankers,
investors, advisors, and so on). The share zone caters for events and social activity
and includes a brainstorming room and two areas that are open to the public, a co-
working coffee shop and an innovation space.
 2.

2.

2.

2.

2.

2.

Figure 6 2. Figure 7
Create zone: the heart of the building is dedicated the startups’ work space. The central
nave is a multi-functional and community space, while the side naves homes to all of
the startups’ functional aspects in the form of 24 “villages” (8 per level). Each village
is unique and welcome various services (kitchens, Skype box, meeting rooms, and so
on). The shared working spaces is an open-plan and equipped with modular and
connected tables.

Figure 8 Figure 9
3. Chill zone: this relaxation area houses a multi-functional restaurant that open 24
hours a day and a south-facing gallery offering a view over a multi-level garden, that
is open to outsiders as well as those who work at Station F. This area will be open
onto the neighborhood thanks to a south-facing terrace with views over a tiered
garden.

Figure 10 Figure 11
Spatial configuration:
Station F is 34,000 square meters, the building measures 310
meters long (as long as the Eiffel tower is high) and 58 meters
wide and clear height of almost 9 meters. The building capacity
is 9000 people and it inhabits:
 more than 3,000 work stations (about 12,000 square meters
total)
 1000 startups
 1,370-seat auditorium
 1 Fablab
 8 event spaces
 Restaurant: eight kitchens, three bars and a covered market.
(about 4500 square meters)
 26 startup programs
The station is also introducing a new co-living space for
entrepreneurs 10 minutes away on Ivry-sur-Seine where three
Figure 12
towers house 100 apartments for 600 entrepreneurs at
‘affordable and flexible’ rates. It aims at creating a greater coherence for a startup
ecosystem that was previously fragmented.

Figure 13: Functions percentages in station F

Building Composition:
it is primarily composed of three parallel naves, featuring slender pre-stressed concrete arches
that in places are thinner than 5cm along the roofline. It also has overhangs suspended over
the sides of the building, which act as a counterweight and contribute to the overall structural
finesse. This optimizes the concrete frame and gives the building its strong, powerful lines.
The refurbishment plan designed by the Wilmotte & Associés studio is simple and effective.
It eliminates any superfluous decoration to reveal the elegance of the structure and enhance
the refined proportions of the main and secondary pre-compressed reinforced concrete
elements. The new window frames that complete the building are made of flat iron and create
a comfortable environment while also matching the structure’s original style. Many of the
depot’s original elements was retained including the pre-stressed, reinforced concrete
structure and the old shipping containers, the latter of which have been turned into meeting
rooms. The result is a light, open space with an authentic, industrial feel and a nod to the
building’s history.
The interior of the building basically consists of a main central space under a vast barrel vault
with a large skylight in the middle of it, and a series of individual startup boxes, created from
iron structures, which run down either side and are completely separate from the original
concrete walls. The small rooms located on the ground and first floor have glass fronts
overlooking the shared central space, while the top floor hosts a series of cantilevered
container boxes that recall the depot’s original purpose.

Figure 14 Figure 15
Figure 16: Ground floor plan – station F

Figure 17: First floor plan – station F

Figure 18: Typical village plan – station F

Adaptive reuse treatments:

Figure 19: Modifications in station F

When the building was built in 1929 as a freight depot, the requirements were of course
very different from those of office workplaces today: air conditioning, soundproofing,
daylight – all of this presented the architects and specialist planners with particular
challenges.
 First, the massive side walls of the station were broken open and fitted with
insulating glazing so that the workplaces on the newly drawn galleries are
supplied with daylight.
 The original skylight of the ridge
was to be retained, but neither the
glazing nor the roof surface were
thermally insulated. Since the
prestressed concrete arches had to
remain legible inside, the roof was
insulated. The skylight was raised to
match the new insulation height and
the glazing was replaced with
insulating glass. The vents are
motorized for natural ventilation and
are used for so-called night air
purging to dissipate heat loads and Figure 20
activate the hall's thermal mass.
 In addition to the energetic and climatic aspects, ensuring adequate noise
protection was a challenge. The
white containers form an important
component here: They divide the
enormous total area into smaller
sections and thus ensure less sound
propagation. To further reduce this,
the steel shell of the boxes was
perforated and insulated with mineral
wool.
 The newly added gallery floors are
clad on the underside with acoustic
ceilings, and the skylights of the side
aisles are fitted with sound-absorbing Figure 21
slats (baffles). These also protect against direct incidence of daylight and ensure
indirect lighting of the workplaces.
 In order to enable use as an open-plan
office with the appropriate
infrastructure without impairing the
listed historical substance, two - in
some cases three - intermediate levels
were installed in the two side aisles of
the building like a gallery. And as a

Figure 22
 result of using a removable, reserved white steel construction, flexible adaptation
to future requirements is guaranteed.
 The galleries are oriented towards the open central nave of the station, which can
be experienced here in its full height and impressive length.
 The meeting rooms, which in the
form of white "ship containers"
protrude slightly over the edges of
the galleries towards the middle. The
containers divide the office zone into
so-called villages, which each define
their own areas of a startup.
 In the central nave itself, the former
track systems, which were below the
level of the platform, were designed
as sunken corridors based on
workshop pits. They structure the
room and accommodate the lockers. Figure 23

Influence on the society:

 Due to this fact, there has been a surge
in real-estate value in the 13th
arrondissement, which was previously
one of the cheapest neighborhood to
buy a home. This working class area
was given the nickname “faubourg
souffrant” (the ailing suburb), for its
shabby social housing and retro
apartment towers. Now the area is
enviable for its rise in interest rates,
according to Paris real-estate agent
Gilles Colzy. The clientele is getting
younger and investors are snapping up
small apartments to rent to Figure 24
newcomers. Station F is already
making an impact on a community
level, and Varza’s favorite incubator is
the Fighters program for entrepreneurs
from underprivileged backgrounds.
“We have some really exceptional and
unusual profiles in that program,
including a former prisoner,” she said.

Figure 25
Conclusions:
- This project that represents the rehabilitation and the adaptive reuse of grey urban
areas, suits best our Cairo and Alexandria project sites.
- The similarities between this case study and our Cairo site in Ramses, is that both had
the same function main old function, a former railway station, hence we can find that
the existing structures in our site are highly similar to la Halle Freyssinet. So we can
get inspired from the transformation techniques that the architects used to make
Station F a successful innovation hub.
- Also, same techniques can be applied on the site in Alexandria since the site has
existing old factories that have similar scale and spatial configurations as an old
railway station. Because of the large spans and open plans that allow us to easily
establish smaller divisions and areas with high flexibility and simple materials.
- In order to create a successful rehabilitation project, it’s necessary to start from the
transformation of the urban context where these structures sit.
- Sustainability approaches can be used bring new and modern functions into the
existing buildings, through repair and alterations, while preserving the portions of the
property with its significant historical, architecture, or cultural values.
- Huge part of renovating brown urban areas is how to engage the society and the
people living in these areas in the process.