The professional office Design & Build market does not constitute a professional sector with well-defined borders. It is a competitive space where different professional groups seek to appropriate the monopoly of certain activities, or at least to be granted greater legitimacy in their exercise.
The commercial real estate market emerged in France in the 1970s to respond to the growth in the number of office jobs in the industrial and tertiary sectors. The French government plays an important role in the building of a commercial real estate portfolio with the creation of the DATAR (Interministerial delegation for regional planning and regional attractiveness) in 1963, and the implementation of its "metropolises of balance" policy which promotes the construction of business centers in Lyon and Bordeaux.
The development of a commercial real estate market enables the growth of new professions dedicated to the management and fitting-out of offices. This professional space will mainly open up to the trades of urban design in the 1980s–1990s, where the white buildings will give way to the construction of office buildings taking into account the demand for project management. We then see architects, urban planners and building engineers positioning themselves in the sector by offering project management assistance (AMO) or general contracting services.
The office Design & Build market is not a professional sector with well-defined borders — it is a competitive space where different professional groups seek to appropriate the monopoly of certain activities, or at least to be recognized with greater legitimacy in their exercise.
Extract from a chapter of a collective work in preparation.