Office care space Transformation of an existing office and workshop building in Les Acacias (GE)

“While the occupation of office buildings fluctuates according to the economic crises affecting our cities, the question of the future of office buildings and the spaces they offer is more than relevant. New offices keep emerging, following the classical layouts, and the old ones are for the most part left abandoned.” (Grégory Kramer. Kevin Rodriguez, Towards an end of the office? Theorical statement, 2023) Located on a large industrial wasteland in Geneva, the building 5C-5D on Route des Jeunes is an office and workshop building from 1988. The idea of the project is not to create a new office building but to take the existing office building and to improve its environment. The new key component of the transformed office space is a self-care program. The existing two-part building will therefore be redesigned into two entities: The self-care area and the office area. By having these spaces interacting, the goal of the project is to create an office building where users’ wellbeing is taken into account for users’ physical and mental health. The original structure and façade will be used adapting it to the new elements. Openings are created in the existing slabs and walls to generate new vertical and horizontal connections between programs. The new office and self-care building is a proposition for a solution for offices in general, to improve the existing environment, to think about the user’s wellbeing while at work.