Lacaton & Vassal and Emmanuelle Delage Architecte have been selected to design the transformation of the Cité Administrative into a mixed-use building with apartments and professional offices. Located in the heart of the city, the modern administrative center, built in 1967, is a landmark in the urban landscape of Vannes, a city in the Brittany region of northwestern France.

The original building, with its sober and minimalist aesthetic, characterized by horizontal lines and no ornamentation, has a cruciform floor plan and comprises six stories, including a recessed penthouse that rises above a three-story base.

The renovation of the "Cité Administrative," Lacaton & Vassal and Emmanuelle Delage Architecte, combines two strategies: architectural quality and careful urban integration. The aim is to reinvent this emblematic building as a dynamic element within its urban environment, while also being environmentally responsible.

The project is organized around two existing volumes. The podium houses offices, shops, and services, while the cross-shaped volume is designated for the construction of between 86 and 90 apartments for students and young professionals.

Functional and social integration is the foundation of this project, which combines housing, professional offices, and public spaces, paying particular attention to the relationships between the different uses.

Visualización por Gwénaël Gosh. Transformación del «Cité Administrative» por Lacaton & Vassal y Emmanuelle Delage.

Rendering by Gwénaël Gosh. Transformation of the "Cité Administrative" by Lacaton & Vassal and Emmanuelle Delage. 

The building's overall structure, volumes, and prominent architectural elements, such as the access area connecting the building to the street and the staircases, are preserved. The existing facades, some of which contain asbestos, are removed and replaced with high-performance glazed facades.

The open structural system, composed of posts, beams, and open-slab floors, is distributed on both sides of a corridor. The lightweight, removable partitions facilitate the transformation into a mixed-use building.

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Architects
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Lead architect.- Lacaton & Vassal architectes.
Associate architect.- Emmanuelle Delage Architecte

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Owner
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SNC Semaphore, Grand Ouest Immobilier (manager).

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Contractor
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S.A.S Lowel, Grand Ouest Immobilier (manager).

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Area
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Surface net floor area.- 14,301 sqm.
Floor area.- 16,163 sqm.

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Dates
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Calendar.- Studies scheduled to end at the end of the first quarter of 2026.
Planned work schedule.- 36 months.
Delivery.- First quarter 2028.

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Location
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13 avenue Saint Symphorien, Vannes (56), France.

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Photography
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Philippe Ruault.

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Rendering
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Lacaton & Vassal, Emmanuelle Delage, Gwénaël Gosh.

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Lacaton & Vassal. Anne Lacaton and Jean Phillippe Vassal created the office in 1989, based in Paris. The office has a practice in France, as well as abroad, working on various buildings and urban planning programs.

Anne LACATON was born in France in 1955. She graduated from the School of architecture of Bordeaux in 1980, and got a diploma in Urban Planning at the university of Bordeaux in 1984. She is teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Madrid since 2007, and was invited in 2011 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, as well as in Harvard GSD Studio in Paris in 2011.

Jean Philippe VASSAL was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1954. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Bordeaux in 1980. He worked as an urban planner in Niger from 1980 to 1985. He is professor at UdK Berlin since 2012, and has been a visiting professor at the TU in Berlin in 2007-2010, and at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne in 2010-11.

Main Awards, the Grand Prix National d’Architecture, France, 2008, the Rolf Schock Prize, visual arts category, Sweden 2014, the Daylight & Building Components Award, Velum Fonden, Denmark, 2011, and the International Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2009, the Equerre d'Argent award 2011, with Frédéric Druot, France. Their work has been shortlisted several times and twice finalist for the Mies Van der Rohe Award, European Prize for Contemporary Architecture.

The main works completed by the office are: the FRAC, Public Contemporary Art Collection, in Dunkerque, France; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Site for contemporary creation ; social housing and student housing in Paris ; a music and polyvalent hall in Lille ; the Café for the Architektur Zentrum in Vienna ; a School for Business and Management in Bordeaux ; the Architecture school in Nantes, and significant housing projects in France such as the House Latapie, Bordeaux ; the House in the trees, facing Arcachon Bay, the "Cité Manifeste" in Mulhouse. They are now working on the transformation of modernist social housing : the Transformation of Tour Bois le Prêtre in Paris (with Frédéric Druot, architect), in St Nazaire la Chesnaie and in Bordeaux Grand Parc (with F Druot and Ch. Hutin, architects). All these projects are based on a principle of generosity and economy, serving the life, the uses and the appropriation, with the aim of changing the standard.

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Emmanuelle Delage Architecte  is an architecture practice founded in Paris, France, in 2018, by Emmanuelle Delage. 

Emmanuelle Delage is DPLG architect from the Bordeaux School of Architecture in 1999. She worked as a project manager at the architecture firm Lacaton & Vassal for 16 years. From June 2020 to January 2024, she led the Adidas Arena project for the architecture firm NP2F, for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Since 2024, she has been collaborating with Lacaton & Vassal on the transformation of the Vannes administrative center in Morbihan into housing, offices, and retail spaces. She has been a member of the board of directors of the Bains-Douches association since 2022. The Bains-Douches extension was designed in 2019 with architect Ronan Lacroix.

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Published on: February 26, 2026
Cite:
metalocus, SARA GENT
"Shared space. Renovation of the "Cité Administrative" by Lacaton & Vassal and Emmanuelle Delage" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/shared-space-renovation-cite-administrative-lacaton-vassal-and-emmanuelle-delage> ISSN 1139-6415
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