Many of Renzo Piano's studio's projects are striking for the freshness of their solutions to problems that have traditionally been approached from a strictly disciplinary point of view. In this case, the rehabilitation of an industrial factory has given rise to Piano's proposal of a garden.

Schlumberger is a company that deals with measuring instruments, from electric and gas meters to oil and gas prospecting devices. Its facilities in Montrouge, south of Paris, used to occupy a large eight-hectare site practically filled with factory buildings, which the company wanted to turn into an 'industrial forum'. The Piano team's intervention consisted of renovating the tall buildings and eliminating the lower ones in order to create a large urban park for the enjoyment not only of the company's employees, but also of the neighborhood's residents...[+]