Benoît Fougeirol

Concrete Wonders

RATP Bus Center

Thiais, France

Designer: Emmanuel Combarel and Dominique Marrec

The bus station created for the Paris transit authority, RATP, is the world's first building wrapped in Ductal, a high-performance concrete created by Lafarge in 2001 that can be used to make very thin layers which can span long distances. Opened in 2007 near Orly Airport, the building was designed to receive personnel around the clock and manage the traffic of 200 buses. The architects aimed to make the building look as if it had been punched up from the street, and therefore covered it with slabs of gray concrete that extend over part of the parking lot. Resembling pieces of Lego and studded with 97,000 dots, the concrete slabs are just 3cm (1.2 in.) thick.