Inspired from the particular landscape of Brittany, our project is shaped like three rocks standing on a granite esplanade. The “Grand Bé”, the “Mont Saint-Michel” and large rocks, which rise up from the ocean, constitute the identity of the region by marking its history and heritage. Our mediacenter and movie theaters project turns the image of rocks into an original urban system, which catalyzes the surrounding activities. From the train station to the city center, the first rock is the mediacenter, the next one the movie theaters and the last one the cultural center, which widely open themselves onto the plaza created.
These three blocks are covered with a mineral skin, as an echo to old city fortified walls city center while offering building energy efficient. Their insulation is external in order to maximize the building inertia. These rocks are not only simple objects standing on the plaza; they are lifted from the ground at specific and open up to create large entry portal. They are designed as sponges, porous to the context where they appear. These rocks are multi-faces and without particular orientation, or principal facades. The buildings have large footprint, but like a pyramid, its surface decrease with the height, limiting the shadows on the neighbor. Its higher point culminates at 19m from the ground, but 75% of the volumes surface is situated between 0 and +10m.
The volume of the rocks are generated by intersecting plans. The cantilevered effect of their volume is increased by the intersecting plans of the rocks. We worked on their volumes, their materiality and transparency to create complex and rich space between them. In the interstitial space between the mediacenter and the movie theaters volume, stands the foyer, sculpted by the negative shape of this volume.
