Renovation and modernisation of the Grand Palais museum. One of the project’s major challenges is to provide new spaces incorporating all the technical facilities to fulfil visitors’ expectations and the implementation of the museographical programme while showcasing the building’s heritage. Thus creating contemporary architecture combined with the restoration of structures to their original state, conforming to the original volumes of the exhibition spaces designed in 1900, in order to accommodate the scheme’s cultural, educational, event-related and commercial functions.
The structural engineering project is highly complex, with the creation of basement levels beneath a prestigious historic monument.
The project is also designed to permit an architectural tour of the building whose climax is access to the roof of the Grand Palais. Two auditoria, a media centre and a children’s gallery are planned.
A major technical challenge is the thermal insulation of the main hall, contributing to energy management and compliance with environmental constraints. Another is to incorporate very high-power thermo-frigorific and electrical energy production into a historic monument of this nature. To this end, autonomous units using groundwater are combined with connections to urban heating and cooling networks, and the site’s high voltage supply circuit is partially backed up by an independent power plant comprising generating sets.