PRESS RELEASE

Unique Paris office complex carries top honors at Eco-Building Forum trade exhibition.

PARIS, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Bouygues Telecom Tower, a new three-building office complex scheduled for completion in 2010 in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a city neighboring Paris, has been selected for top honors at the Eco-Building Forum 2007, the event's organizer has announced.

The "Grand Prix" award, a top international prize for achievements in sustainable design, was conferred by the organizers of Eco-Building Forum on September 18, 2007, to Bouygues Immobilier, the developer, and Arquitectonica. Bouygues Telecom Tower was honored as the best building in the High-Rise category.

Arquitectonica, an international leader in architecture and urban planning, is the firm responsible for the design of Bouygues Telecom, for the client Bouygues Immobilier. Based in Miami and Paris, Arquitectonica beat out some of the best-known sustainability architects in Europe and the United States to claim the prestigious honor.

Miami architect active in Paris

"This is an exceptional honor for us as we complete several large and highly visible buildings around Paris," says Bernardo Fort-Brescia, FAIA, founding principal of Arquitectonica. "The recognition of our design work in France, which is unparalleled among U.S. firms, is now matched by our capabilities in green building."

The owner/developer of the project, honored for its forward-thinking green initiative, is Bouygues Immobilier, a company that Arquitectonica has worked with since 1995. Other new buildings commissioned by Bouygues and designed by Arquitectonica include Exaltis Tower in La Defense, completed 2006, and the EOS-Generali building, now under construction.

Eco-Building Forum, the leading annual exhibition of sustainable design and building trades in France, consists of three days of lively debates, panels, and the awarding of "Grand Prix" honors for achievements in green building. The Bouygues Telecom high-rise, also known as Mozart Tower, received the prize in the tall buildings category. The headquarters project consists of a 24-story tower set between two eight-story buildings in a campus-like setting.

Yves Berranger, director of Arquitectonica's Paris office, opened in 1993, says, "We submitted the Mozart Bouygues Telecom Tower as a candidate because of its extensive green building features and innovative overall design. We are delighted to win first prize in front of a field of very strong architects."

Green features

The design of the Bouygues Telecom complex is highly ambitious and features green-building innovations in energy production and efficiency, water retention and reuse, air conditioning, and in building envelope construction.

The 936,000-square-foot structure straddles the boundary between Paris and Issy-les-Moulineaux, a fast-growing ring city. According to Berranger, "at the urban design level, the composition addresses the duality of the site with the building facing both the city and the suburb."

Organized around an elliptical center tower, and combining sleek modern construction with soft, "sinuous" curvature on the roofs and sides of the structure, Bouygues Telecom Tower not only merges city with suburb, but also technology with environment.

Constructed with a unique double-skin facade, the building features a shading system between the two skins. Triggered by light and heat detectors, the shades automatically climb and descend as befits the energy needs of the structure and the comfort needs of its occupants. Other areas make use of shutters and fins to control light penetration and distribution. A lower building roof is being made into a "green roof," planted with landscaping and gardens for cooling, water retention and, of course, beauty.

Some of the other features that helped garner the "High-Rise" category award:

  -- Solar thermal panels (for hot water) and photovoltaic cells (for
     electrical power) installed on rooftops within glass fins.
  -- Steam heat from an adjacent waste treatment facility.
  -- Use of elevator motion to cogenerate electricity.
  -- Use of a CO2 detection system, which triggers fresh outdoor air
     circulation only when and where occupants require it.
  -- A rainwater collection system, which filters and stores the water for
     use in toilets and landscape watering.

Fort-Brescia, who helms Arquitectonica with Laurinda Hope Spear, FAIA, took inspiration for the project's composition from nature itself. "All three building forms have organic overtones. The tower is inspired by a river rock, the bar by a twig, and the atrium by an earth form," he explains. "They are symbols of our green society, yet the forms are abstracted to their essence and wrapped in the modernity of glass and steel."

The award was presented to Arquitectonica and Bouygues Immobilier during the Eco-Building Performance Forum on September 18, 2007 at Porte de Versailles Expo.

For more information, contact Chris Sullivan at (New York) or . For images, contact .

ABOUT ARQUITECTONICA (www.arquitectonica.com): A full-service architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning firm, Arquitectonica began 30 years ago in Miami. Led by founders Bernardo Fort- Brescia, FAIA, and Laurinda Spear, FAIA, ASLA, the firm has evolved into a practice of nearly 500 employees. Today, the firm designs many building types including cultural/institutional, education, government/public, hospitality, interiors, mixed-use, office, public assembly/sports, residential, retail/restaurant and transportation, as well as planning and urban design.

Arquitectonica (www.arquitectonica.com) is directed by offices in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Madrid, Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, Lima, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. Affiliated companies: Arquitectonica Interiors (www.arquitectonicainteriors.com) and Arquitectonica GEO (www.arquitectonicageo.com).

Source: Arquitectonica

CONTACT: Chris Sullivan, (New York), or
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Web site: http://www.arquitectonica.com/
http://www.arquitectonicainteriors.com/
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