06.05.2025
Comfort and energy performance: La Poste relies on Equans for its Maison de l'Innovation in Nantes
On April 30, 2025, La Poste Group inaugurated the Maison de l'Innovation, its new digital hub located in the heart of the Île de Nantes. The 15,375 m², mainly wood-frame building houses 1,200 employees from its IT teams. Designed to combine digital technology and innovation, Equans France, through its Ineo entity, contributed to the construction of this sustainable building by implementing tools to optimize its energy performance.
Intelligent building management at the crossroads of performance, comfort and safety
At the heart of the Maison de l'Innovation, the equipment deployed by Equans - in particular the building's technical management system - offers each La Poste Group employee present in the building the opportunity to adjust in real time, his or her working environment via a dedicated application: lighting control, installation of fans, temperature adjustment, orientation of solar protection or even a meeting room reservation system. More than 1,200 PLCs were integrated and installed in this state-of-the-art infrastructure.
In addition, to guarantee fire safety, nearly 500 smoke detectors were installed. The objectives of this equipment are threefold: they enable optimizing the building's energy consumption, deenhancing safety and ensuring intelligent, centralized management of all facilities.
All these services were carried out as part of an electrical package - including high current, low current, fire safety and building management systems (BMS) - conferred to Ineo, an Equans France entity, in a consortium with another player in the sector.
In a regulatory context reinforced by the BACS decree, which requires the installation of automation systems in tertiary buildings, BMS is emerging as a key lever for achieving the tertiary decree's objectives: -40% energy by 2030, -50% by 2040.
Ineo's teams handled half of the site's electrical installations. The work, which began in April 2021, mobilized some thirty employees, for effective handover in October 2024.
A wooden structure and advanced technical management
Open space at the Maison de l'Innovation in Nantes
Photo credit: Equans France
The eight-storey building is 75% timber-framed, with the first two floors in concrete. This constructive choice, associated with a high-performance building management system (BMS), reduces the site's carbon footprint while improving user comfort and autonomy. But this choice also poses unprecedented challenges. Indeed, as the building is composed of bio-sourced combustible materials from reuse, the operation required specific adaptation of technical devices, particularly in terms of fire safety. All this innovative design illustrates La Poste Group's desire to modernize its real estate assets by integrating sustainable, high-performance solutions, in line with its commitments to social and environmental responsibility.
"We are very proud to have supported the La Poste Group on this technically differentiating project, particularly in terms of the unprecedented scope of the building's technical management. The success of the Maison de l'Innovation illustrates our commitment to building ever more sustainable infrastructures that enhance user comfort. In fact, it's the largest commercial project completed by our teams in Loire-Atlantique and Vendée in the last five years", explains Thomas Druais, Branch Manager in Loire-Atlantique & Vendée for Ineo, part of Equans France.
