Les 3 soleils – Shopping center

This shopping mall is situated in the heart of the city of Rennes opposite the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle and the Place du Colombier.

The building had an undulating curtain wall in a traditional brown colour – avant-garde architecture of the 1970s – and the wave effect was doubtless a reminder of the Breton maritime context.

The shopping mall was in need of modernization and AIM Hanemian Architects opted for a less datable façade preserving the existing design and the volumes of the building. But a luminous, light-coloured material was substituted. This re-designed wave-effect, off-white cladding has retained the same system of structural frames and openings of the original building so as to avoid disrupting activities in the office levels when work has to be done.

Visitors to the city centre pass through canopied entrances and these en­hance the striking impact of this new white building in its city centre context. To link the ‘Les 3 Soleils’ with the adjacent shopping centre at the other side of the Place du Colombier, AIM Hanemian Architects is working on a project for a low-level, semi-sunken street of shops and businesses.