Clean Concept: Cleanroom expertise serving innovation

What is a cleanroom?

A cleanroom (or Controlled Environment Area) is a space designed to drastically limit the presence of particles, microorganisms, or contaminants in the air through rigorous control of environmental parameters and the management of personnel, material, and waste flows. In addition, the nature of partitions, floors, and ceilings must allow for easy cleaning and decontamination.
Environmental parameters include precise control of temperature, humidity, differential pressure between the room and its surroundings, and the number of airborne particles. According to international standard ISO 14644‑1, a cleanroom is defined as a room in which particle concentration is controlled, with classes ranging from ISO 1 to ISO 9.
Cleanrooms may operate under positive pressure to prevent particle ingress (e.g., in pharmaceutical or electronic industries) or under negative pressure to prevent the release of sensitive or hazardous contaminants.
They are essential tools for securing critical stages of production, handling, or research.

Applications of cleanrooms

Cleanrooms are indispensable in sectors where environmental parameters determine the final quality of the product. For more than 30 years, Patriarche has designed and delivered controlled environments in various fields, in France and internationally:

• Pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, medical devices
• Luxury and cosmetics
• Healthcare
• Aeronautics
• Microelectronics
• Agri‑food industry

Key challenges related to cleanrooms

Professionals working in controlled environments face several major imperatives:

• Ensuring product quality and repeatability, particularly in pharmaceutical or microelectronics sectors
• Protecting operators from chemical, biological, or other risks
• Ensuring regulatory compliance
• Maintaining a stable environment where temperature, humidity, pressure, and particle levels are perfectly controlled
• Integrating energy performance and sustainability into facilities that have historically been highly energy‑intensive
• Designing safe, technically and energetically efficient environments lies at the heart of our Clean Concept approach.

Patriarche’s approach

Expertise dedicated to complex technical environments

With extensive experience in designing and delivering laboratories and complex technical environments, Patriarche meets the highest requirements of innovative sectors. Our approach is based on an integrated vision, carried by a multidisciplinary team involved at every stage—from concept development to delivery—to guarantee performance, safety, and compliance.

Designing with the client

Because controlled environments require a deep understanding of workflows, equipment, and operational needs, each project begins with active listening to users. Flow analysis, risk identification, understanding constraints and ambitions… This phase enables the emergence of concrete and innovative solutions. Throughout the project, we work in co‑design with the client to propose a solution that closely matches their needs. As technologies evolve rapidly, we are also able to adjust the project throughout its development.

A team dedicated to project success

Patriarche stands out through its integrated skills platform: augmented architecture. A model that responds to the growing complexity of projects requiring increasingly diverse and complementary expertise.
Within the team, the Clean Concept engineer supports users to understand their practices, risks, and constraints. With strong expertise in regulations and contamination‑control technologies, they define the laboratory class, design functional diagrams, organise flows, select materials and finishes, and oversee the specification of specialised equipment.
In parallel, the architect transforms these technical principles into an operational and ergonomic space, ensuring the seamless integration of scientific requirements and circulation needs within a thoughtfully designed architecture.
This dynamic is reinforced by the coordinated involvement of HVAC engineers, who design systems managing environmental parameters; electrical engineers, responsible for networks, lighting, and emergency systems; and the cost consultant, ensuring the coherence of materials and implemented solutions.
Team organisation relies on continuous collaboration between engineers, architects, and cost specialists. This synergy guarantees technical performance, user safety, long‑term durability, and maintainability of the facilities.

Types of spaces

Patriarche works across a wide spectrum of controlled environments, covering all stages of the innovation cycle—from fundamental research to industrial or hospital‑grade production.
In research and development spaces, we design scientific greenhouses, animal facilities, and biology and chemistry laboratories. These spaces include containment levels from Class 1 to Class 3 and are designed to allow researchers to handle sensitive samples, conduct complex protocols, and ensure team safety while preserving experimental integrity.
For production environments, we deliver cleanrooms compliant with GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), from Grade D to Grade B. These spaces support highly standardised processes where contamination control, repeatability, and traceability determine final product quality.
In the healthcare sector, our expertise extends to operating theatres, hospital cleanrooms, medical analysis laboratories, and critical care units. These environments require extreme precision in flow management and environmental parameters to ensure absolute safety for both patients and professionals.
This diversity of interventions enables us to adapt our methods to highly varied requirements while maintaining high levels of performance, compliance, and functionality.

Selection of Clean Concept projects

• Sartorius Campus – Aubagne  : Biopharmaceutical campus integrating ISO 7 cleanrooms and sterile production areas, forming a complete tool dedicated to biotechnology, combining laboratories, logistics platforms, and quality‑control spaces.
• Agro Paris‑Saclay Campus – Palaiseau  : Scientific complex hosting L1, L2, and L3 laboratories, S1 greenhouses, and C3 climate chambers, organised into flexible research platforms designed to support cutting‑edge scientific programmes.
• NTN SNR European Headquarters – Annecy  : Hybrid building combining offices and R&D laboratories, offering a high‑performance and modular technical environment to support industrial innovation and collaboration.
• GenoLife – Genopole, Évry‑Courcouronnes  : Scientific building with modular laboratory platforms (L1, L2, chemistry, prepared for L3), designed to host R&D, bioproduction, and testing activities within France’s first biocluster.
• Biotech Development Center – Switzerland  : Biotechnological centre integrating bioproduction cleanrooms (Grades C and D), a BSL‑2 laboratory, and Flexlab platforms adaptable to continuous processes and automated technologies.
• Necker – Paris  : Renovated research building hosting laboratories, an animal facility, and modernised technical areas, with complete reorganisation of flows and improved environmental and functional performance.
• Genzyme – Lyon Gerland  : Complex combining bioproduction units, laboratories, and offices behind a bioclimatic double skin, offering a controlled and high‑performance environment for the production of complex medicines.
• Bioaster – Lyon Gerland  : Innovation centre bringing together modular and reversible P2 and P3 laboratories, designed to host industrial and academic research teams working on microbiology and infectiology.
• Boiron – Biotechnological Campus of Messimy  : Biotechnological campus developed over more than twenty years, bringing together R&D laboratories, pharmaceutical production units, and logistics platforms within a functional and scalable ensemble designed to meet the requirements of controlled technical environments.

In addition to these major projects, Patriarche has delivered many other Clean Concept projects that remain confidential.

Photo credits

© WTTJ, Romuald Nicolas, Thierry Genand