A symbolic restructuring

PCA-STREAM is restructuring the parisian headquarters of AXA, the world’s leading insurer, which comprises three buildings set around a garden. The office is enhancing the value of this prestigious but obsolete asset by restoring its overall identity and adapting it to new uses. The aim is to reposition the Group’s identity to reflect its commitment to sustainable development, by making the premises a showcase for innovation, collective intelligence and environmental responsibility, as well as a tool to raise awareness.

For PCA-STREAM’s interior architecture team, the AXA Matignon project is an opportunity to investigate alternative solutions for environmentally-friendly materials, to reflect in an aesthetic and comfortable way the challenges and positioning of tomorrow’s insurance company, dedicated to insuring against climate risk. This approach is in line with the « virtuous materiality » line of thought of Stream Lab, the office’s applied research laboratory, around the new challenge of measuring and reducing the carbon footprint of any architectural intervention, which implies a change of outlook, knowledge and practice, by favoring local, bio-sourced and reused materials. Beyond the technical aspects of implementation, this approach takes on an obvious dimension of aesthetic awareness, to make these new materials desirable.

Virtuous materials

All materials used in the project are certified to the highest standards, as a new normality, to which are added more experimental features, explored with AXA via the production of a mock-up presenting specific research into recycled, recyclable, bio- and geo-sourced or reused materials. This is reflected in the project by the use of a bio-sourced paint with plant-based binder on the walls, and renderings on the landings made from excavated earth from the Grand Paris works, the result of extensive research into the nature, color, grain and possible forms of mixing these earths. On the floor, a terrazzo has been created using aggregate reused from the facades of another AXA building currently being deconstructed. The general layout gives pride of place to wood, thanks to a partnership between AXA’s forests and carpenter-parquet makers.

The low-carbon approach is based not only on the quality of the materials themselves, but also on the way they are used. It incorporates an overall logic of material savings, for example by reducing false ceilings or wall cladding to a minimum, in a spirit of « just what’s needed », without sacrificing comfort or aesthetics. The aim is to use the right material in the right place, for its intrinsic qualities and in the right quantities, without altering image or usage qualities.