This Urban Arts Centre project is located in the southern part of the river eco-district of L’Île-Saint-Denis (just north of Paris). The main square, Place de la Batellerie, is at the centre of five buildings with different functions: offices, student accommodations, a hotel, a water sports centre and our Urban Arts Centre. Planned long before Paris 2024 decided to install part of its Olympic athletes’ village here for a two month period, this site, originally intended for a joint development zone and initiated by Plaine Commune (local housing project), has undergone a new evolution in this context. Thus, the private sector was invited to take over the cultural facility initially planned, without any precise programming, and we had to articulate an architectural response to it, by creating free floors, suited for maximum modularity and versatility.
The purpose of the building is therefore twofold and in two sequences: first to accommodate the athletes during the time of the events (Olympics and Paralympics), then to open, after some minor transformations, a sustainable City of Urban Arts, which will act as a focal point for the district, by mixing all kinds of public... Thus, following a “marathon competition” that we won, this project —a five-storey concrete building with a height of 24 metres— is based symbolically on the qualities of athletes and their athletic abilities of flexibility, power and resistance.
Compression/Tension/Extension
The Olympic Games have strongly inspired our architectural conception, which is always fed by strong allegories. Above all, the building must lend itself to a capacity for reception and mutability, for possible transformations and versatility. A space “capable” of adapting to future uses, through a form of purity and simplicity. Our design is based on the body metaphor of sports postures and is a blueprint that can be summarised by these three words: compression, tension and extension.
Compression, because much like a sportsman at the beginning of a race, a building must be well put down, rooted with all its weight in a concentration of energy ensuring its stability and balance. This implies working on gravity and dealing with the weights distribution. The Urban Arts Centre, set on a welcoming and highly permeable base, opens onto the Place de la Batellerie and extends into a circulation area suitable for hosting events. The envelope that surrounds the ground floor around the evolution space is made of a stainless-steel mesh that can be retracted onto the square and completely opened. Sculpted load-bearing posts support the free-standing floors, stretched to their limits, which appear to float. The concrete has a natural, grey and raw shade.
Similarly, the notion of tension concerns the athlete as much as the construction: pulling the metals of the frames to contract them upwards allows the stabilisation of the weights...The extension is to be taken here in a more symbolic sense: it represents the imagination and the range of possibilities of all the cultural activities that will be developed in the future.
Five free, reversible and modular free-standing floors
The construction of the Olympic village involves two distinct stages. We foresee a possible reversibility of the project between its two phases, the Olympic Games and the Urban Arts Centre. Its functional organisation, facades, distribution and exterior spaces remain unchanged. During the Olympics and Paralympics, all the spaces can be used as accommodation, depending on the needs of Paris 2024. On the ground floor + 2 (R+2), the largest space will be used as an office space. The roof, which is inaccessible, will only be used for the production of renewable solar energy. During the Urban Arts Centre phase, the building’s programme will be put in place for good.
Modelled on the ground floor —which is freely accessible and can accommodate all forms of free activities (e.g., a forum), with the possibility of a stage— the upper floors play on different heights and, thanks to their large openings, act as extensions of the public space below. The upper floors are subject to access controls and are closed to the public. They have a separate entrance, independent of the playground. On the first floor, there is a multi-purpose sports area mainly dedicated to urban dance (breakdance), with vertical circulation on each side. The second floor houses eight studios and workshops ranging from 22 to 40 sq. m., accessible by a space facing north onto the square. These are workplaces for artists, sportsmen and women, or project leaders —creative, cultural, event-based— in residence, and for people housed at the Urban Arts Centre. These are reversible and modular spaces. The multi-purpose room on level 3 is dedicated to the reception of groups, the promotion of events and of various activities. The fourth level is a festive space dedicated to catering. It can be privatised by the various people involved in the Urban Arts Centre.
On all floors, there will be large curtains in different colours, gold, silver and bronze, in reference to Olympic medals. This system serves as a blackout and separation, as well as a thermal and sound insulator. It allows the spaces to be modulated and to play on the lights and on their reflections. Within a rough concrete structure, this coloured stylisation, both decorative and functional, defines the identity and general aesthetics of the building.
