“Chapeau”, a sports park and new urban place for the woods is characterized by an unprecedented relief, introduced in the process of design thinking related to soil and the empty space it creates. The buildings that make up the urban landscape, perfectly calibrated on the urban fabric, have complicated the delicate choice of the approach and the relationship to the existing building of the hall. Early in the project, the intention of Michel Carlana, Luca Mezzalira, Curzio Pentimalli and Riccardo Sanquerin was to integrate the gym in the environment in a local sense. By isolating it from the front of the hall, the building became one of the five elements of life. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The project has made a new urban space through a porous border. Some identifying marks are seen out the path to the ground which carefully reinforces the separation of activities between them and the public space. The open space is designed as a single element that surrounds the buildings of the project on all fronts. Furthermore the integration of sports as green spaces and public to create a sports park that aims to act as a social catalyst for different generations. Users of the park as much as the land will be able to identify these spaces as meeting places and recreation.
Access to buildings from the site and the sports park fit on several fronts. The result is a basic set up but articulated buildings designed with more than a single façade. This feature is made possible through a controlled access system, which allows to use different parts of the building separately so that the frame is able to perform various functions and events as required in various ways depending at the time. The result is a simple and adequate to the demands of a place that is flexible and a new site for the centrality of the Woods.
The design of a public building, which aims to become a reference city, must take into account the notion of collective imagination. The project was therefore focused on the dynamics of the Woods. It was designed with respect and according to local geographical features while incorporating the architectural features of the region in a process of interpretation that protects the character of the site. The choice of construction techniques and materials, stereometry, the immediate consequences of climate change, the topography and history, are parameters in which the new building is part of the project and which takes into account the consequences and s’ inspires. This process results in a compromise between the strength of the contemporary context and the place becomes, well, a manifesto and a reference point for the inhabitants.
The roof and the basement of the building are designed in accordance with the rules of composition characteristics of the local architecture. Combining the architectural vocabulary in current thinking and contemporary has the sole purpose of distinguishing this new place, which by its nature and design, does not create a radical break with its context. This place is so unusual without being ostentatious.
The positioning of the building at a certain level above the ground can connect directly to existing levels. At the same time, the size of the volume of the gym, half-buried, is partly overshadowed by the game level. This ensures that a building volume does not clutter the urban environment in the vicinity, providing a visual and physical permeability through space by means of light and imperceptible change in the existing ground surface. The interior and exterior merge into a single space with the roof line.
Project Team: Michel Carlana, Luca Mezzalira, Curzio Pentimalli, Riccardo Sanquerin Location: Place des Petits d’Hommes, Les Bois, Canton Jura, Switzerland Client: Village of Les Bois, Canton Jura, Switzerland Size: 2700 m2
