Mont-Blanc Base Camp by Kengo Kuma

Photographer: Michel Denance

Photographer: Caue Beatrice Cafieri

The project was to design a headquarters building for Blue Ice, a company specialized in products for outdoor sports of various kinds, which includes base jumping. The site looks up the peak of Mont-Blanc.

In order for the architecture and its surrounding forests to dissolve in the environment, the façade of the building is almost like the trees in the wood, as it consists of thick, unskinned panels of oak. The roof is also composed of the unskinned planks.

The roof is designed wide and grand, so that it goes in harmony with the inclination of the land. In its underneath, a one-room space extends lit by natural forestall light from the top. The working space of the office is placed like a terrace in this woody space.

Kengo Kuma, Yuki Ikeguchi, Matthieu Wotling, Silvia Fernandez, Chizuko Kawarada

Site Supervision: TOP Frederic Reinert
Mechanical and Concrete Structure Engineer: EGIS Grand EST
Wood Structure Engineer: BARTHES
Quantity Surveyor: LTA
Façade Engineer: AR-C
Acoustician: ACOUSTB