GYMNASIUM RÉGIS RACINE BY ATELIER D’ARCHITECTURE ALEXANDRE DREYSSÉ

Located on a plot that is enclosed with an urban fabric of residential houses, the building hosts a sports hall of 22 by 44 meters, a dance studio, office spaces for associations, as well as lockers for sports teams and referees.

The sports hall is a lofty wooden nave, with a curved roof, which keeps the walls from being too high, as they adjoin the gardens of the surrounding houses. The project was built in a complex and very enclosed residential area, 75% of the project boundary is situated in the limit of the site, therefore no openings on the facade are permitted, the gymnasium have been designed including this following constraints:

–   Integrating a dense program into a very limited space; – Limit the height in order to ease the integration and perception of the building into the residential surrounding, especially houses whose gardens overlook the building;

–  Keep the building process ongoing without intervening on the surrounding areas;

–   Insure a maximum of natural illumination despite a 75% opaque facade;

–   Create a quality inward looking spaces.

The building is 90 meters long and is divided into two parts : – A large wooden nave, the sports hall, its curved roof is used to limit the height of the facades in relation with the surrounding houses . 

This part of the building is illuminated by a large glazing poly carbonate system on roof. – a second one level part beside includes: the dressing rooms, services and the dance hall.

It was designed for pupils of schools and colleges of the city of Drancy area, local associations and sports clubs. The sport hall was optimized for basketball regional competitions.

Wood, as the preferred material, was used in three different ways in order to create a specific ambiance to each space: – Wooden structure of the sports hall: in continuous crossed arcs-columns made of laminated timbers ; the rhythm created structures the illuminated parts of the roof. – Wooden structure of the hall: arches and exposed battens. – Wooden structure of the dance hall panels forming rectangular boxes.

Environmental optimization: – Use of sustainable and natural materials; – Increasing natural lighting; – Dual flow ventilation system; – High performance gas condensing boiler; – Low temperature radiators; – infrared lighting systems; – System of rainwater collection for watering green spaces.

 

Location: Drancy, France 
Architects: Atelier d’Architecture Alexandre Dreyssé 
Architectural Assistant: Sébastien Muller 
Engineers: Betom Ingénierie 
Structural Wood Engineers: Tec Bois 
Environmental Engineers: Cap Terre 
Area: 1,581 sqm 
Year: 2011 
Client: Ville de Drancy 
Photographs: Clément Guillaume

LOUVRE-LENS BY SANAA AND IMREY CULBERT

Wandering freely among Egyptian carvings and Roman mosaics, Islamic ceramics and Renaissance oils is a liberating experience, with the artefacts given new life freed from the damask-lined corridors of their Parisian parent. It feels like a private view inside the museum's out-of-town storage facility – with the concrete floors, metal walls and exposed beams to match.

"In the Louvre in Paris, everything is exhibited in rigid departments, like an encyclopaedia of art," says Adrien Gardère, responsible for the exhibition design of the Lens outpost. "Here we are bringing sculpture and painting together, from different periods and geographical areas, to create fruitful confrontations."

It is a radical curatorial approach that has not gone without criticism in the French press. Harry Bellet wrote in Le Monde that putting everything in one room risked it looking "like a bookshop where all the books are muddled up". He might not have realised that this is precisely the attraction: you never know what you might stumble upon next.

Another move that has raised museological eyebrows is the continuation of the clinical palette within the gallery itself, creating a space somewhat reminiscent of an industrial abattoir – six millennia of art history lined up for the slaughter. Yet the material surfaces are always elevated above the utilitarian. The brushed aluminium walls, gently warped, create a ghostly backdrop of reflections, a blurry mingling of people and artwork.

The concrete floor follows the sloping topography of the original site, a subtle move that reminds you where you are. The exposed steel roof beams, spanning the 25m width of the hall, have been slimmed to a miraculous 12mm thick, which allows natural light to wash over the space.

Beyond this principal Galerie du Temps, the building rises up into a glass pavilion for temporary exhibitions (currently filled with gigantic puppets from local street parades) with views across what will one day be a wild meadow landscape, designed by Catherine Mosbach.

Here, winding paths follow the original haulage routes across the site, punctuated by grassy worm-like landforms, which serve a dual function as picnic spots and ram-raiding defences – an increasingly common coupling in the current climate of terrorism-driven urban design.

The pairing of glass box and metallic shed is replicated the other side of the complex, in the form of the central entrance pavilion and secondary gallery space, currently arranged as a more conventional suite of rooms. The glazed entrance block is populated by Sanaa's trademark amoebic glass bubbles, containing bookshop, resource centre and members' area, which gleam like a cluster of petri dishes on a lab bench.

This disorienting space of transparencies and reflections forms the central fulcrum from which the gallery wings extend, with an auditorium beyond the second exhibition hall. From the entrance, a spiral stair – reminiscent of the one in the Louvre pyramid – descends into the bowels of the building, where you can look down on the storage racks and see conservation work in progress.

It is all part of the attempt to open up the museum to a broader audience, exposing this never-before-seen side of the institution. As a means of breathing fresh life into the Louvre's collection, and providing an overview of the history of art to a wider public, it is hard to fault this project.

Sanaa's architecture may seem materially alien to the site, but its combination of industrial utility and fragility is an apt reflection of the surrounding context – at once rugged and vulnerable (although perhaps slightly too vulnerable, in the brave choice of 2mm thick aluminium cladding). Source: Oliver Wainwright of The Guardian.

Since the construction launch of the satellite museum, the Louvre Museum has proceeded with its expansion plans, notably with the recent opening of the Cours d'Islam in Paris and the Louvre Abu Dhabi by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, currently under construction.

Location: Lens, France 
Architect: SANAA and Imrey Culbert 
Landscaping: MosbachPaysagistes 
Structural and facade planning: Bollinger + Grohmann 
Museography: StudioAdrien Gardère 
Total area: 28 000 m² 
Total exhibition area: 7000 m² (Great Gallery: 3 000 m²) 
GFA: 14,000 m² 
Glazing Area: 6,600 m² 
Roof area: 12,500 m² 
Auditorium: 280 seats 
Park total area:  20 ha 
Cost: € 150 million 
Competition: 2005 
Construction period: 2010 – 2012 
Opening: 4 December 2012 
Client: Regional Nord-Pas de Calais

GYMNASIUM AND TOWN HALL ESPLANADE BY LAN ARCHITECTURE

In the Île-de-France region, the new gymnasium at Chelles is an exceptional example of a public building with a strong architectural identity. The town council’s aim was that this local amenity should play a key role in the harmonious redefinition of the urban landscape.

Located in the town centre, the project enhances the surrounding architectural heritage, composed of the Collège Weczerka, the Centre d’Art Contemporain “Les Églises” and the Town Hall. Respecting each edifice’s identity and acting as a link between them, it helps re-establish an aesthetic equilibrium. The reorganised esplanade was conceived as its natural extension and redefines its use as a pedestrian circulation area.

The gymnasium is an innovative example of the increasingly adoption of HEQ norms in the construction or refurbishment of public buildings. The project is the culmination of the town council’s carefully thought-out plan to transform the site into an open public space. The double-skin façade, with glass on the outside and copper-covered wood panels on the inside, creates a strong architectural identity.

The paving of the esplanade, a combination of bush-hammered concrete and large plaques of Core-ten finish concrete, echoes the walls of the gymnasium. This so-called “contextual” architecture takes into account the dense and varied environment and dynamises the setting. The glass facade amplifies perception of the surrounding space by reflecting the buildings around the square, not merely by mirroring them but by diffracting their image and creating a specific optical effect. 60% of the gymnasium’s total surface is covered with glass and copper.

The interplay of light and shade conceals the building’s framework and gives it its mineral appearance, elegance and lightness. The technical system used for the envelope is simple: a steel structure, glass façades with the lower walls in insulated concrete with copper cladding inside. This double skin ensures optimum acoustic insulation. The copper-covered wood panelling absorbs noise and reduces resonance in the large gymnasium space within.

The new esplanade was conceived as both a meeting place and a transit space, and develops the idea already sketched in by the architect Marc Barani for the Contemporary Art Centre. The subtle chequerboard arrangement of large bush-hammered and Cor-ten finish concrete slabs gives the square another dimension and highlights the entrances to the Town Hall and college.

As a natural extension of the gymnasium, the esplanade reinforces the overall impression of harmony. One of this project’s keynotes is its energy-efficient conception. Built to Very High energy Performance (VHEP) standards, the building provides a high level of user comfort. Its insulated concrete walls help cooling in summer and limit heat loss in winter. Each room also has a nocturnal double-flux ventilation system that recovers energy from the air extracted.

The façades are glazed with 2.28 m2, 44.2 “securit” panes on the outside and 8mm tempered glass on the inside, with a 14 mm anti-heat Argon gas infill. The building is connected to the town’s geothermal heating system, with a programme that heats spaces before use. The heat circulation generates the hot water and heating of the gymnasium, its annexe, changing rooms and circulation spaces.

The gymnasium is equipped with 32 photovoltaic panels with a total power of 7360 Watts, generating 6600 VA to be sold back to the national grid. The rainwater recovery system, functioning with the green roof, supplies the gymnasium’s toilets and washing facilities and provides water for its surrounding planted areas.

The infrastructure is lit naturally by large windows in the curtain wall and roof. At night, the building’s exterior is lit by LED projectors set into the ground. The entrances are indicated by candelabra. Inside, presence detectors optimise electricity management everywhere except the gymnasium space itself.

 

Location: Chelles, France

Architect: LAN Architecture

Project manager: Chelles Town Council

Area: 2200 m2

Budget: 3.85M € excl. VAT

Year: 2012

CULTURAL CENTER BY ATELIERS O-S ARCHITECTES

Located in the town of Nevers, the new Cultural Centre is a public facility in the middle of a restructured district, which will host local organizations.

The location of the building will preconfigure the organization of the public space, surrounded by the Avenue Lyauteyto the north, renovated housing to the west and the south and new housing to the east.

“The strategic position of the cultural centre and the program led us to design a compact and generous project, as an extension of the public space enhancing the identity and image of the neighbourhood.”

The architects conceived the bleachers at the front of the building as a tiered public square that can be used for events, games, or simply as a picnicking spot for local residents, “like an agora overlooking the neighbourhood,” they explain, referencing the ancient Greek name for an assembly place.

The main elements of the program are organized on two levels, around a federative patio bringing light and cohesion in the heart of the project: a multipurpose room of 220 seats, a dance hall, working and meeting rooms and an educational childcare structure.

Visitors to the building enter through a double-height atrium, which leads through to a 220-seat auditorium on the ground floor. Other facilites on this floor include a creche and a series of event rooms, while a dance hall and meeting rooms occupy the first floor.

Glazed walls surround the central courtyard on two sides to bring natural light into the ground floor corridors, while a private first-floor balcony overlooks the space from above.

Behind the timber cladding, the building has walls of concrete is covered by a wooden autoclaved cladding, intended to “create a friendly environment” in a tough environment.

 

 

Location: Nevers, France

Architects: Ateliers O-S architectes

Design Team: Vincent Baur, Guillaume Colboc, Gaël Le Nouëne, Aurélie Louesdon, Kit Chung

Area: 1,613 sqm

Year: 2012