Sartorius France Campus in Aubagne: One Year After Completion, Looking Back at a Mixed-Use Project Combining Offices, Laboratories, and Logistics.

A Campus Designed Around a Mixed-Use Program

One of the project's main challenges was to bring together very different activities on a single site, each subject to its own specific requirements. Research, quality control, logistics, support functions, workspaces, and social areas coexist while maintaining their distinct operational needs.

The master plan developed by our teams made it possible to structure this diversity within a clear and sustainable framework. The campus notably comprises:

• P16 Building: An extension of the existing production facility, this building incorporates an automated storage warehouse, a logistics hall equipped with 10 loading docks, two-storey office spaces, a quality control laboratory, a cafeteria, and a 500 m² cleanroom (ISO 7). The office façades, designed as curtain walls with adjustable sunshades, together with the louvred cladding of the logistics area, reveal a sleek envelope based on a harmonious alternation of ribbed panels in a monochromatic white finish. The entire complex is connected to the existing main building via a 130-metre link structure.

• P17 Building: As the central building of the campus, it accommodates shared amenities (restaurant, cafeteria, auditorium, and fitness facilities), a conference centre, meeting rooms, and open-plan office spaces. This four-storey glazed cubic volume (50 × 50 × 20 m) is wrapped in a double-skin façade composed of timber, aluminium, and extra-clear glass, providing panoramic views and a mirror-like effect that reflects the surrounding mountains. The façade also acts as a windbreak, protecting the external metal blinds from powerful mistral gusts—an important feature in a region characterized by strong sunlight and wind. A 20-metre-high central atrium, illuminated by a zenithal skylight, connects all floors and serves as the hub of the building’s circulation system, bringing together glazed walkways, suspended metal staircases, and oak seating terraces.

• A wide variety of uses and environments designed to foster biodiversity: including an outdoor amphitheatre, dining areas, a sports hub, relaxation spaces, ponds, and landscaped swales that encourage walking and social interaction. Together, these amenities help transform the campus into a vibrant living environment as much as a centre for production and research.

Each function is integrated within a comprehensive system designed to foster synergies between disciplines while meeting the demands of an industrial and scientific environment. The architecture, conceived in close connection with the surrounding landscape, provides an inspiring workplace that supports innovation and collaboration, while helping to attract and retain talent in a highly competitive sector.

Among the key measures implemented are:

The entire portfolio of office and logistics buildings has achieved HQE Sustainable Building certification at the Excellent level, as well as BiodiverCity certification, reflecting a comprehensive, multi-criteria approach that integrates energy performance, biodiversity, user comfort, and territorial resilience.

« One year after its completion, the campus demonstrates the relevance of the design choices made during the project’s development. By bringing together offices, laboratories, logistics facilities, and shared living spaces on a single site, the project provides Sartorius with a facility fully aligned with its operational needs and future growth ambitions. The result of close collaboration among all stakeholders, it illustrates Patriarche’s ability to deliver complex projects from strategic definition through to completion. »

Alexandre Feuillade, Lead Project Architect at Patriarche.

Team:
Travaux du Midi, lead contractor of the design-and-build consortium alongside Patriarche, Autumn | Patriarche, and Structures Île-de-France