La Queue du Lézard Community Center / Rue Royale Architectes

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At the core of the urban renewal project for the Mireuil district of La Rochelle, “La Queue du Lézard” (“The Lizard’s Tail”) is a complex of local community amenities which is part of a plan proposed by ANRU (the French National Agency for Urban Renewal) developed together with landscape designers from the In Situ firm. A community centre, city sports grounds and a games library are grouped together in a 200 m long narrow strip made up of alternating built elements and voids. It is designed according to the principle of generic architecture, constructed around a concrete spinal cord that contains all the technical and services areas, a glue-laminated skeleton and a skin of Douglas Pine. This overall architectural expression, which allowed programmes to be adjusted during the concept definition stage, now presents a general view in which solids and voids blend into each other. This design method and its capacities for flexibility earned the project the nickname of the “lizard’s tail”.