Salle festive Succieu / Guillaume Girod Architecture

Guillaume Girod Architecture
520.0 sqm

May 21, 2014

Text description provided by the architects. The project takes place in the city of Succieu in the so called “les terres froides – the cold lands”. The place has a strong relationship with earth traditionally used to build the farm. Many of them spot the landscape with their specific shape ; thick wall made of earth and large pitch roof. This vernacular architecture is now surrounded by many family housing.

Succieu has a long rugby history. The whole territory welcomes many teams and players. The rugby field is the center of the village activity. It’s a rough way of playing, in the mud under the rain. Aethetic is not the goal, the fighting spirit the main criteria. The municipal leisure center takes place naturally next to the rugby field where a former municipal center and cloakroom have been demolished.

PROJECT

The projet is based on a contempory interpretation of the traditional farm. Its shape and materiality are the starting point for the layout. The basic shape of the long picth roof is manipulated and stretched to become hybrid unit. Its scale is voluntary small regarding the surrounding buildings. The municipal leisure is made of four hybrid units sliding next to each other in order to offer a low scale facade. The goal is to avoid a small copy-paste of a typical urban leisure center. It is a municipal leisure set in the country side. It is already enough, no need to do something fancy.

On the other side of the site a single unit is dedicated to the cloackroom. This strategy is due to the need of keeping the existing cloakroom during the all construction time, in between the two new buildings.

The cloackroom location offers a back ground boundary to the site and the public space. As a tribute to the rugby and in order to offer more to the users two tribunes are implanted in the building. They face the field and offer more comfortable place to enjoy the game.

The materiality of the project is naturally based on the farm legacy, the earth construction. The projet is made of concrete cast in place. It is a contemporary vision of the earth construction: using a mineral material trough a casting process. Its color comes from a varnish applied on the concrete.

The western façade is made of one perforated concrete wall. This specific part aims to avoid the light getting into the building trough a thick filter. It is working as a Halloween pumpkin at night offering a smooth light to the surrounding.

Inside the municipal leisure the undulating shape of the roof is visible on the ceiling. The main room is covered by this specific white ceiling. Acoustic and natural day light are under control by an active system and offer multi ask space.