Gymnasium + Youth Center (with Sabine Germond)

Paris, France

Architects: Moussafir Architectes

Competition; ranked second. On its narrow plot hemmed between two tall recently constructed buildings, the gymnasium emerged as a threshold of the gateway to a new urban neighborhood. We have chosen to increase the maximum below-ground depth recommended by the brief, since the available height would have forced us to place public areas (changing rooms, toilets, showers, circulation zones) in the basement, thus depriving them of natural light. Slightly lowering the basement level rendered the roof habitable, which made it possible to arrange the required facilities in the upper part of the structure and distribute daylight more evenly inside the building. The roof is composed of five longitudinal strips of varying heights; seen from the outside, they create a set of fluid inclined surfaces that reinforce the urban porosity of the hemmed-in plot. From the inside, the roof with its high level of thermal inertia diffuses light, facilitates the ventilation of the sports hall, and ensures smoke extraction. The flat underside of this deep roof delimits a smooth, serene, generously daylit interior space, while its irregular upper surface sculpts the urban void and echoes the abstract, angular geometrical forms of the neighboring buildings.