At the entrance of the Odysseum development zone in Montpellier, the office building L’Ammonite is located on a leftover plot between a roundabout and a tramway line, beneath a high-voltage power line and above a main water pipeline.

The project was enriched by these constraints and takes advantage of its position, offering exceptional visibility.

Organised around a central patio, the three-storey building unfolds into two opposite “points”: a lower point (ground floor and first floor) beneath the former high-voltage line (now buried), and a higher point (second and third floors) cantilevered 14 meters above the water pipeline, creating a covered forecourt.

Elusive in its geometry, L’Ammonite reveals itself through multiple faces: sometimes frontal, sometimes stretched, with its smooth grey-silver glass façade echoing the hotel management school Georges Frêche located across the roundabout.

The recessed volume beneath the cantilever is entirely clad in an intense blue, from floor to ceiling, as if carved from the mass, highlighting the forecourt and the building’s entrance.