French Embassy | frederic schoeller

Program - Diplomatic Campus, a French territory European: consulate, embassy residences, receptions, gardens. 3800 sq.m2, 14 M€

Quality stakeholders - Project designed in a team with Dori business construction, business Israeli enterprise in Nigeria. Support was ATO agency (Lagos). Richard and Schoeller made all architecture execution plans, blast facades and furniture conception, structure study by Batiserf, including execution. AMO on site: EGIS. Daily digital exchanges and on-site travel of french team every month for a week on site.

Specifications: (materials, construction systems, etc.) – white concrete white panel design on-site (aggregates crushed) in wooden formwork Pieri. Anti blast frame Hueck including special glazing from Phoenicia (Israel). Building fully insulated (floor, wall) with Knauff mineral wool, 100% plant-covered waterproofing Soprema with local sedum, landscape with local gardeners, soil enriched with organic waste from the construction site, Stone Nero Marquina striated for high floors and polished for ground floors. Egyptian stone floors limestone.

Mission design construction with all execution studies

Building specific characteristic: objective reduce of 50 % the energy, natural ventilation privileged, security reinforcement, high information technology, easy maintenance, high resilience of the site, taking into account context and specific supplies, training workers teams on site (insulations, blast, sealing, plaster partitioning) 

Country and site constraints -

In Abuja, 1979 making the town planning, Kenzo Tange draught urban planning with rectangular plots revealing orthogonally of future buildings on the site. The building vertical dimension and its relevance in a frontal scale relationship with the streets are in coherence with the urban situation and geographical territory, to become a landmark in the embassies campus.

The cube's volume of the French Embassy is seen from Abuja arrival, as a signal. The openings are located South and North. East and West with dazzling lights remaining slightly open

The land, a 7450m2 area is flat on the highest point of the territory, overlooking from East Abuja city above European embassies and looking toward West, India Embassy outlined on the distant landscape of inselbergs. The project is compact; the built density, of 28%

With climate data, the South face is the best side to open the Embassy. During the season of Harmattan winds, dust from North and trade winds of North East Sahara cover all exposed surfaces with dust. 

The project's first intention is to create a space between in the middle protected from winds, on North and East with a garden protected from the sun.

A clear differentiation of the different functions from the entrance: chancellery, ambassador's house, security guards' accommodations allows for visitors an easy sense of direction on the campus. 

The deeply urban character of the embassy, immersed in a green setting will become evident in the dynamic context in full evolution.

A responsible and educational attitude for a modern bioclimatic building

 Facades fit in well into Nigerian climate with " light shelves ": fixed surfaces placed perpendicularly and horizontally along with windows, which allow direct protection from solar radiation and good natural lighting through the entire depth of rooms.   

Light shelves divide the window into two parts allowing a view into the distance. This type of indirect natural lighting system achieves an excellent light/energy compromise while allowing maximum natural ventilation. Consisting of a fixed awning painting on its upper face with a light-reflecting surface placed at ¾ of window's height; it protects users from most of the direct radiation and helps maintain a satisfactory brightness level in the back of the room. 

In all sensitive poles, patios allow dual-aspect ventilation and night cooling as real wind towers derived from an accurate airflow study.

Design environmental process pursues the following methodological approaches: 

1. First, a sober approach carrying out work on minimizing the needs of each flows energy, water waste, maintenance, and upkeep. 

2. Architectural conceptual choices, envelope components, sustainable management system, robust, which maintain their technical functional and aesthetic properties, in time

3. Then an efficiency approach consisting of each technique to provide the best possible service for the minimum fluid consumption. (luminous efficiency for lighting, cold production)

4. Finally, a renewable approach consisting of using resources with the lowest possible impact on the environment, in particular, energy and water.

The work was an opportunity for formation and exchanges, always between local know-how, curiosity to learn and to train companions mixing materials in short circuits and those globalize.

The embassy has been in service since November 2019.