CREDITS
HUGH DUTTON : DOME DESIGNER
CLIENT : SOCIETE GENERALE BANK
ARCHITECT : ANDRAULT & PARAT
ENGINEERS : RFR & ARUP
HDA / RFR : Hugh Dutton, Pat Dallard, Jean Brangé, Jacques Renaud.
DATE : 1993-1995
At the centre of Société Générale’s twin-tower headquarters, at La Défense, is a delicate skylight in stainless-steel tracery. It consists of a 32m diameter dome made from cast stainless steel profiles of triangular cross-section, disposed in a Lamella configuration. The structure is entirely statically indeterminate, and develops its resistance by a combination of axial load and bending out-of-plane. The lamella geometry limits in- plane buckling length so that the profiles are justified in being deep but very thin when viewed from below. The triangular profiles bounce the rays of sunlight indirectly off their surface, so that no shadows are thrown on the tracery, when seen from the atrium below.
Hugh Dutton was responsible for the design development of this lamella dome, whilst working with the engineering firm RFR. The structure was analysed at Ove Arup by Pat Dallard.
