PSA Centre de Design

Rather than creating a design to facilitate customer orientation or enhance brand identity, the priority in the case of the PSA Peugeot Citroën project was to bring together, and promote communication between, the employees of the styling and design sections within a single location. While still ensuring a clear differentiation between the Peugeot and Citroën brands, the architectural solution needed to foster innovation and creativity, teamwork and communication, as well as reflect the high aesthetic standards of the company.

Prominent Features

The Automotive Design Network (ADN) in Vélizy offers a generous 70,000 square metres of space for interdisciplinary dialogue. Step by step, architect Jacques Ripault implemented a planning process similar to that employed when designing a vehicle. Hence, the garden-access ground floor houses the workshops for the prototypes, with the engineers one storey above, and then one higher, the Peugeot and Citroën stylists—with strict spatial separation between the two maintained in order to ensure that the brand profiles do not become diluted. Variable partitions of the DORMA Hüppe Variflex Solid-K system guarantee optimum space utilisation combined with outstanding noise insulation. At night, incidentally, the design centre is converted into a work of visual art in its own right with a constantly changing pattern of light and colour.