ShAKe is a shared-use [SHARE] real estate complex with a focus on the service sector [WORK] that blends urban life with nature, the economy with social life, and work with leisure. PCA-STREAM designed the project’s program in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team that included the primary user, the Caisse d’Épargne Hauts-de-France. Spanning over 30,000 m2, ShAKe will offer office space and a range of services, including dining options, an incubator, urban agriculture, and even a cultural and artistic space. It is located within the Euralille district, a hyper-hub connected to major European cities, contributing to its dynamic of reinvention and revitalization through the Euralille 3000 project.
Reinventing the Office Building
ShAKe reimagines the office building in response to societal trends that are transforming work styles and spaces: the blurring of boundaries in our lives, the shift from ownership to usage and sharing, and concepts of community and the sharing economy… This trend is driving companies to prefer vibrant spaces that prioritize employee comfort and feature welcoming, pleasant shared areas. A growing number of companies are also seeking an alternative to the constraints of long-term leases. ShAKe thus offers various occupancy options tailored to professional nomadism. The office building evolves from a rigid, self-contained structure into an open, flexible, and generous ecosystem, providing resource and service spaces for both its users and the neighborhood’s residents.
Architectural Morphogenesis
ShAKe was shaped by its context; the proposal for a spiral promenade building proved optimal for addressing the site’s challenges and the programmatic ambition. The slender south facade positions the building at the forefront of the neighborhood, while the opposite side presents a softer frontage toward Dondaines Park. From there, a spiral rises in a series of tree-lined terraces up to a belvedere. This silhouette ensures optimal energy performance and remarkable comfort for users. The building helps create an oasis of coolness in the neighborhood, with its trees regulating air pollution and promoting biodiversity, while the terraces provide protection from noise pollution from the ring road. They offer a wide variety of uses, either serving the building’s programs or fully open to the public. Office spaces, coworking areas, and the incubator can use these spaces to work outdoors, hold informal meetings, lunches, or events; the daycare center will provide children with a secure outdoor space; and sports programs will offer outdoor activities. An ecological corridor bringing the Parc des Dondaines into the building, the ascending promenade ensures continuity between nature and the built environment.
A shared space open to the city
ShAKe becomes a 24-hour hub for life—a place to work, eat, stay, have fun, and learn. It offers its many services not only to occupants but also to neighbors and the city, including the daycare center, sports facilities, an auditorium with a business center, a shared parking lot with the neighborhood, a food court, a restaurant, and rooftop gardens. Improving the quality of life for users goes hand in hand here with the idea of becoming a living space and meeting place for the neighborhood, to which the building is connected by a lively forecourt with a gentle slope. This is extended by its counterpart inside the building, “the village square,” a place for passing through but also for waiting or resting, which connects all the building’s functions and serves as the hub of its activity.
