Richez Associes

The big event of the last 6 months is the birth of our “lab’’. The Richez_Associés lab is a key element in the practice strategy. This initiative resolutely establishes us on the fast-developing track of environmental transition. Under the leadership of Lise Mesquida and Thomas Richez, the lab intervenes on the 26 key attributes of our projects - from urban water management to pedestrians and bicycles in the city, from bioconstruction to artificial intelligence, from biomimetics to the bioclimatic. On each attribute, a design manager monitors and optimises good practice, supports on each project their development and innovation. All attributes are now state of the art. While half a dozen of them, for the most part initiated in recent years, are already operational - the lab contributes to our projects!

Without a doubt, this is the first “big child” of our young lab!

ADEME retained our proposal, undertaken with Franck Boutté Consultants and Léonard (Vinci think tank), to develop a guide that enables urban designers to invent a new standard for the ordinary urban street - a street liberated from domination by the car, open to new uses and new forms of mobility, a street with fertile and porous soil, with strong albedo - a post-carbon/post-covid street. First stage of initial studies, the constitution of the project team to undertake experiments and establish evaluation procedures. Major cities have already manifested their interest.

On the theme of post-carbon mobility, the Ville de Paris recently followed up on our work for the Metropolitan Forum, exhibited in 2018 at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal. We are appointed to undertake the Porte de la Chapelle case study transformation!

The arrival of Arena in 2024 initiated the redevelopment that includes reactivation of pedestrian and bicycle routes from Paris to Saint-Denis, the constitution of the urban square which results from the motorway reconfiguration and construction of the Condorcet campus on the Porte de la Chapelle railway brownfield sites - a new chapter for the ring road.

Basse-Normandie smiles at us… In association with Jean-Pierre Laubal/Equipage, we prepare the planning application for the conversion of  the former courthouse, Palais Fontette. This splendid 18th century building will be transformed into a 190-bed hotel with a steel mesh covered extension to connect it to a congress centre. At the same time, two Caen clients confided us several town planning commissions:
• Université Caen-Normandie seeks our advice on the partial redevelopment of its campus.
• Communauté d’Agglomération Caen-la-Mer confided us the master plan to develop 150ha next to the airport. The objective is to develop a durable city/landscape relationship that gives place to nature rather than impose homogeneous development upon the sector.

Remarkably busy on tramway projects - with commencement of construction on the T10 Antony-Clamart tramway which runs through the woods, alongside the Butte Rouge and the commissioning of the T9 Paris-Orly tramway which links the Porte de Choisy to Orly-Ville. The re-established royal route from Paris to the Château de Choisy is animated by the first stops designed with Sovann Kim, our longstanding partner, in compliance with the design code by RCP, with whom we worked closely on Tours tramway. Accordingly, stops bear the Ile-de-France Mobilities corporate image of all future tram lines. Unfortunately, to the great disappointment of the adjoining municipalities along the axis, there was no formal inauguration and celebrations - pandemic obliges!

(offices, housing and shops in Ardoines)
While construction of our first timber housing units for Icade in Bessancourt are nearing completion, the Choisy T Zen 5 maintenance centre tender documentation has begun; a timber structure for offices and workshop, and the Legendre (for Group Avril) Rue de Monceau timber extensions commenced construction. For Linkcity in Vitry, we prepared a 30,000m² office planning application. Resulting from the Inventons la Métropole 1 call for projects, the building is located within the Ardoines neighbourhood where, on behalf of its developer EPAORSA, we are the project managers of public areas.
8 storeys high, the project combines concrete cores with timber floors. Unlike Bessancourt, there is no timber cladding in facade, instead stone and metal in combination, which integrates these pioneering offices calmly into their neighbourhood at the planted crossover bridgehead, we designed in 2017.
All expected to be delivered in 2026, after Line 15 is commissioned ...

And until then, have a nice summer!