Brenac & Gonzalez

Shared Company Restaurant

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia

SHARED COMPANY RESTAURANT

Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés

LANDSCAPE
Jean-michel Rameau

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
RBS

FLUIDS ENGINEERING
Barnabel

BUILDING COSTS CONSULTANT
DAL Eco

YEAR
2020

LOCATION
Montpellier, France

CATEGORY
Restaurant

Text description provided by architect.

The former IBM office complex is located in Pompignane, part of the inner suburbs of Montpellier.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia

The site, purchased in 2004 and 2007 by the Covivio Company, is home to some ten office buildings scattered around this 28-hectare Mediterranean landscape.

The former Foncière des Régions Company has redeveloped this vast property in a sensitive blending of nature and architecture, aiming to attract new technology companies and foster Montpellier’s own “Silicone Valley”.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Stefan Tuchila

BGA was commissioned to build a new office campus for Orange and to redesign the former inter-company cafeteria built-in 1983 by the architect and designer Marc Held.

His architecture, greatly inspired by Gallo-Roman villas, is organized around two interior patios, the main one being surrounded by a portico of wooden columns and enclosed by walls made of alternating layers of stone blocks and cobblestones.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia

BGA’s intervention involved two main parts: first of all, the rehabilitation of the beautiful heritage on the site, overhanging frameworks.

Roman-style tile roofs, composite peripheral walls, columns, wooden carpentry, ground paved with sandstone, raw concrete for the original interior structure, with all of this being preserved and restored.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia

Broad gaps have also been cut in the peripheral wall to further open the bastide to the magnificent landscape of the surrounding campus.

A hollow dug out of part of the central courtyard also brings light into the ground floor.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia

In addition, the demolition of the old kitchens, made of exposed cinder blocks, allowed for an extension of the program.

The new volume, which repeats the system of patios, houses a business center, an amphitheater, a co-working area, offices for local start-ups, and fitness and wellness areas.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant

An agora, a sunlit, linear area, serves as the link between the existing and the new building, pulling the various programs together.

This new program crowned by a chain of outdoor theaters and planted terraces opens to the broader landscape and is linked by a series of ramps. Festive evenings in the outdoor spaces are perfumed by fragrances of pine, lavender, fig trees, and jasmine released by the sizzling afternoon sun.

Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia


Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Stefan Tuchila
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
©Vincent Boutin
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia


Shared Company Restaurant
© Stefan Tuchila
Shared Company Restaurant
©Vincent Boutin
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia


Shared Company Restaurant
©Vincent Boutin
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia
Shared Company Restaurant
© Sergio Grazia


Shared Company Restaurant
Upper floor plan
Shared Company Restaurant
Lower floor plan
Shared Company Restaurant
Site plan
Shared Company Restaurant
Master plan

Brenac & Gonzalez
T +33 1 43558585
Brenac & Gonzalez
36 Rue des Jeûneurs,75002 Paris, France