Barrault Pressacco

The operation of the Saint Germain islet is a vast densification and urban transformation process. A first stage focused on the rehabilitation of the existing office buildings into accommodations, and a second stage, which is the purpose of this contest, is concerned with the construction of a sports centre and a nursery.
The sports centre scheme installs itself underground. The two sports halls emerge in the islets’ two courts, and are linked under the existing buildings by technical programmes, common spaces and circulations. The nursery occupies the first level of the existing building, above the sports centre, and overruns the South courtyard. The two schemes present distinct uses, and do not nurture any functional link. The facades of the new buildings adopt similar constructional strategies, and the massive stone echoes the regular and homogeneous landscape of the context. In both cases, some stones are structural – the vocabulary of a primary skeleton for the gymnasium, that of the wall for the nursery and its external space – and others act as claddings. All the internal structural elements are made of wood, and concrete is only used in case of absolute necessity.