The hangar was located next to four others, on the edge of a straight line that passes through the countryside of Briard, in the north of Seine-et-Marne. The first trade in cannabis and its derivatives. From the newest addition comes the smell of sawdust and the tap of a stapler. The men, currently wearing only helmets and gloves, take turns constructing the facades of buildings, schools and offices in dry conditions. The Aulnoy plant is designed to produce 15,000 square meters of parts per year. “We should reach them this year”assures Arthur Cordelier, director of this very young Wall’Up prefa factory, which is already looking for a second location that will not be expandable.
It is from the mezzanine with a view of the workshop that you can best appreciate the sequence of gestures of the “operators”.. There are twelve compared to two just a year ago. The first pair assembles the framework of the wall consisting of wooden uprights and lintels. The boxes are closed. Everything is tied up, turned over like a pancake and pushed to the back of the hall under the mixer, from which flows the house specialty, hemp concrete: a mixture of hemp, water and lime. Two bricklayers dig and compact with a trowel. Then allow fifteen hours of setting in winter (eight in summer), finishing, a short month of vertical drying before delivery to the construction site.
If the genesis of the story differs, the dynamics are the same, in the south of the department, ten minutes from Montereau-Fault-Yonne. This is not the case at Vestack’s premises not only facades, but whole pieces of floors that are being prepared under the hall of the former plastics factory. The floor and walls are cut, insulated, before men and women paint, paint, draw electrical and water networks, cover facades, sometimes install a bell. The modules are then shipped by truck, ideally within 200 kilometers. A nursery of 150 square meters – three volumes, four weeks of work – should go to Lille. But if the market takes off, as Sylvain Bogeat, co-founder of the start-up, formerly of Unibail and Valérie Pécresse’s offices when she was at Bercy, hopes, the distances should shorten.
That’s because on Wednesday, October 18, vows were made at the Récollets Chapel in Paris at the Maison de l’architecture d’Ile-de-France. Like Wall’Up’s Arthur Cordelier, Sylvain Bogeat made the trip. The morning was devoted to off-site construction, their specialty today, which consists of preparing building elements in the factory before assembling them on site. An event with welcome coffee, round tables, photos and even a charter signing.
You have 75% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
