2013-vinci-annual-report

GROUP / 2013 ALBUM 13
components, enabling all parties involved
in the project to share the same document
database and then launch the industrial
manufacture of the parts for the primary
structure, frame, glass walls, the “icebergs”
and their facing.
Each part of the structure required an
experimental technical authorisation
(ATex), representing the same number of
technological challenges in terms of
materials and shapes. The steel primary
frame alone, made up entirely of curved
components to marry the building’s contours,
required four years of design and
study. The 19,000 facing panels for the icebergs
were made from ultra-high performance
fibre concrete. A totally new way of
carrying out hot glass furnace-work was
used to produce the 4,000 precisely curved
and differentiated components of the
12 glass walls. A special method, known as
the “Last Planner System”, also had to be
fine-tuned and rolled out to manage the
construction’s exceptional complexity and
coordinate the work of the various companies
participating in the project. The Louis
Vuitton Foundation will be opened to the
public in 2014.