Page 178 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

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THE USE OF STEEL GRATING

The Europa building has more than 8,200 m² of steel grating The atrium’s external facade consists of a patchwork of
walkways and platforms. Light and transparent, they are used recycled window frames assembled in 5.40 x 3.54 m stainless
for maintenance work and are not accessible to the public. steel bead-blasted frames. On every storey, there is a 60 cm
They can be used as walkways, can close technical gaps in wide walkway running the entire length of the north and east
the floor, or serve as autonomous platforms. facades. These serve both as supports and as emergency access
to the sliding platform used to clean the facade. In addition,
A small proportion of this flooring has a purely technical they act as a sunshade and are designed to gather and drain off
function, for instance covering technical shaft openings on any rainwater getting through to the facade, thereby protecting
each floor. the woodwork.

Conversely, many of them are visible from the lobby, The conference rooms in the lantern are surrounded, at a
expressing the building’s architecture. height of either 3.29 or 3.44 metres, by a walkway made of
slats coming out from the wall at right angles and fixed to the
For instance, the photovoltaic umbrella over the building latter, connected along the outer edge by a surrounding slat in
(see p. 190) includes a platform made of galvanised grating the same section. Painted white, this minimalist structure can
panels with a total surface area of 5,423.76 m², the primary bear the weight of a man. In addition to providing access to
function of which is to provide maintenance access to the the windows of the upper row of interpreter booths, it acts as a
photovoltaic panels. The umbrella also shades the glass roof support for the various audio-visual devices used during summit
over the atrium. From an architectural viewpoint, the grating meetings: cameras, antennae and giant video screens. From an
gives the umbrella crowning the building its materiality. architectural point of view, the structure looks like a continuous
white light surrounding the room at mid-height. Together with
A few metres lower, the three-dimensional structure of the the strip lighting on the wall just above it, it adds a finer scale
atrium roof consists of a volume 1.35 m high, crossed in all of perception to the room’s wall, itself made of large glass and
directions by diagonal ribs. The lower side of this structure grey felt surfaces.
is made up of 2.70 m mesh squares, each composed of two
equal rectangles, and arranged in alternate directions to form
a chequerboard pattern. Each rectangle is filled with a white-
painted galvanised steel grating. The direction of each grating
panel is similarly alternated, providing for an oblique image that
changes with the passing of the sun. This platform provides
access to all the equipment installed in the roof’s structure
(the bottom side of the roof-lights, the lighting, fire detection
devices, rainwater drainage systems, various cleaning systems,
etc.), while at the same time providing soft light to the atrium
as a white fabric velarium would do.

The service rooms on the 12th floor of the lantern are
separated from their counterparts in the old L-shaped building
by large vertical ventilation shafts. Communication between the
two sets of rooms is via a walkway surrounding the whole of the
lantern, above the atrium roof. Although circular, the walkway
is constructed entirely from standard rectangular grating
panels. These are so close together that the triangular spaces
separating them are no wider than one row of the grating’s
mesh.