Le Bakelite

“Le Bakelite,” on Boulevard Marbeuf in Rennes, is a 60-unit, student-oriented apartment building located just 5 meters from the railway tracks. Without structural isolation, this proximity would likely cause discomfort for occupants due to ground-borne noise and vibration propagating through the building structure.

For this reason, a structural isolation solution was specified, targeting a bearing natural frequency of approximately 8 Hz at the Acoustical Design Load (ADL).

Stravibase SEB, structural elastomer bearings, were used to decouple the superstructure.
The bearings were installed at each column head and between the concrete structural walls. Due to significant lateral loads, the isolation system was supplemented with isolated dowels to provide lateral restraint without compromising the target isolation performance.

These dowels consist of steel reinforcement bars acoustically decoupled using resilient sleeves (Stravibase Sleeve).