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Siège social de la CNESST
By : Coarchitecture | LEMAYMICHAUD
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 15th edition
Discipline : Architecture : Award of the Year Winner, Grand Winner
Categories : Public Building / Institutional Building : Gold Certification
Categories : Commercial Building / Mid & High-Rise Office Building (≥ 5 storeys) : Gold Certification
Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Wood : Gold Certification, Platinum Winner
Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Stairs : Platinum Winner, Gold Certification
Categories : Special Award / Sustainable Architecture : Platinum Winner, Gold Certification
Located in the new D’Estimauville eco-district, the new head office of the CNESST is a key part of the sector’s revitalization strategy, contributing to the framing of D’Estimauville Avenue and Saint-Anne Boulevard. With a surface area of 34,500 m² plus an indoor parking lot with 640 spots, the workspace will bring together more than 1,800 employees under one roof.
The head office of the CNESST required ingenuity in order to integrate 1,850 workspaces and a wide range of collaborative work spaces in a space spread over 8 floors. Given that the client is the leader in occupational health and safety, it was essential that every solution provided in the project meet these two points. In fact, the integration of so many workstations represents a major issue for any project since it implies, among other things, acoustic and safety issues.
Similarly, a strategy for prioritizing the interior common spaces was implemented to ensure the proximity of these complementary spaces for each user while allowing all the building’s occupants to rub shoulders.
The variety of spaces offered to employees is structured around an 8-story atrium in a wooden structure that ensures both an omnipresent visual contact with the outside and a decompartmentalization of the organization’s administrative units to counter the silo effect. Few words can adequately describe the emotion that overcomes you when entering the building. Grandiose, impressive, distracting, one thing is for certain, the space will leave no one feeling indifferent. A generous winter garden democratizing the most privileged space in the building, the atrium of the CNESST’s head office aims to be a first-rate gathering place and resource centre. A must-see, it is designed to provoke positive encounters between employees, thus creating a sense of belonging to a great team and pride in working for an organization whose primary mission is the health of people at work.
Completely transparent in its relationship that unites the D’Estimauville public transit hub with the eco-district’s central park, the atrium contributes in a spectacular way to the animation of the public space with its triangulated wood structure. Warm and inviting, this innovative use of wood is a reflection of the CNESST’s commitment to sustainable development and occupational health, supported by its efforts to obtain LEED and WELL certifications (in progress).
To achieve this result, many technical challenges had to be overcome, starting with the demonstration that the budget could be respected despite obvious additional costs in certain areas, a fact that was counterintuitive to say the least. It was proven that the compactness of the volume, the possibility of avoiding the consolidation of ground thanks to a decrease in loads, a smaller surface area for the exterior envelope and a reduction in the size of electromechanical systems cancelled out the extra costs.
Getting the alternative solution accepted using a range of equivalent measures within the framework of a public governance project was the other major challenge facing designers, and an innovation in itself. Digital simulations financed with the help of grants made it possible to demonstrate to the RBQ that the safety of occupants was ensured despite the use of wood in the building’s structure that should normally have been incombustible.
Collaboration
Other : Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs
