Location: Clermont-Ferrand, France
Architect: Encore Heureux Architectes, Construire and Base
Since the company’s founding in the late 19th century, it has been a fixture on the Carmes site in Clermont-Ferrand. In the 2000s, the site became the organization’s corporate headquarters. The project, which will be completed in 2021 and is being worked on in collaboration with Encore Heureux Architectes, Construire, and Base, intends to encapsulate the group’s image in a warm, distinctive and unified setting while situating itself in a significant public place. The cutting-edge new greeting area at the corporate headquarters represents Michelin’s reinvention, which was created to tackle the problems of the 21st-century head-on. Its design and operation were imagined from a circular economy perspective, conscious of environmental implications.
The project’s key difficulty was to link disparate venues together in a coherent union that would be accessible to thousands of people each day. The tropical glasshouse, built on the plaza by Edouard Michelin in the early 2000s, had a hazy future; yet, it was kept in the architectural program and included in the experience of visitors. The glasshouse, which appears in the emblem, serves as a representation of the group’s principles of openness and transparency toward the city and the rest of the world.
The Canopy is more than just a place for receptions. Its design responds to two main issues: proximity and transparency on the one hand, and a small carbon footprint on the other. The massive glass façade that gives the new headquarters its distinctive personality is an embodiment of the decision for transparency. Its 160-meter length is shielded from the sun by timber awnings. The furniture and architectural style also feature lots of curves, just like Michelin’s tires do.
