La Méridionale headquarters

Marseille, France

Marseille is the Mediterranean, a unique human and architectural collage revealed in an ever-present light.

Its wealth is its diversity, its strength is its exceptional natural site. But more than anything, as the journalist Albert Londres said, “Marseille is the gateway to the south”.

Our project will tell this southern story, its topographical references, its materiality which alternates the clarity of the glazing with the Mediterranean patterns of the azulejos predominantly blue. This office project is not another tertiary building in the territory of our cities, it is a building which will showcase the wealth of Marseille and its Mediterranean identity.

The first building in the metamorphosis of the quays, our project is born on an exceptional site. Where the city and the port meet, it is located in the extension of Boulevard Mirabeau and at the center of the urban transformation project initiated by the Plan Guide de la Joliette.

Symbol and new marker of a renewed port imagination, it constitutes both an entry point to the city from the sea, and a starting point towards Corsica and the Mediterranean.

Program
Construction of an office building

Location
La Méridionale
Arenc sector, East GPMM basins
Marseille, France

Schedule
Competition: 2019

Client
Grand Port Maritime de Marseille

Project management
Lead architect: Hamonic+Masson & Associés

Engineering
All trades: SETEC

Renderings 
YAM Studio

Floor Area
7 000m²

Team
Ghiles Belkessam and Cesar Silva Urdaneta