A TRIBUTE TO WATER
The aim of the project was to rehabilitate an old industrial building in the north of Paris with a program that could serve (temporally) the Olympic games in 2024 and that later on that could also serve for the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
In order to get the real image of this particular neighborhood ‘Saint-Denis’, situated north from Paris, we started by doing a critical analysis of the surroundings. We analyzed urban, social, economic and cultural aspects of the site. This northern Parisian area is particular known by its ethnic diversity where the unemployment rate is high and impacts the residents of the neighborhood.
Another interesting aspect of the site is the presence of a water canal known as ‘Canal de Saint-Denis’ that is now in between several industrial buildings and isolated from the daily lives of the inhabitants.
The next step of the analysis was to zoom into a smaller area of an abandoned industrial building know as ‘Cathedral of rail’ which used to be the former train depot of Saint Denis and that was decommissioned for more than 20 years. Our task was to make a suitable adaptive reuse.
Knowing that in the area there is a lack of interaction among the water canal and water spaces, we decided to take a stand and produce a project that generated a discourse around water, its importance and its vitality in our lives. We wanted to encourage inhabitants to exchange information between water spaces and the potentiality around water culture.
We rehabilitated the building in order to make a dialogue between a natural element and its sustainable and recreational use.
Considering this approach, we concentrated in several domains around water: thermal baths, hydroponic culture, water reuse, and the cycle of water (condensation, evaporation…).
First we started by understanding the existing elements that composed the original building. From this perspective we decided to give attention to important elements of the buildings, such as: arches, curves, rough materiality, triple heights, etc. This methodology made us observe the building much more consciously and create a proposal that enhanced these qualities.
The primary component that we concentrated in was the circulation, how to move around the building and be aware of the different experiences the interior space could offer the users.
With the use of ramps, we highlighted a system that could circulate through the entire building and create different heights.
The industrial building was divided into three sectors: a thermal bath, a transitional space –that became a gallery and a forum- and a hydroponic area that cultivated food with this method. The landscaping of the outside areas was made in order to recycle water, to propose a space for urban farming and to create an exterior sequence with the use of platforms.
The thermal space was composed by white walls and changing rooms. The gallery building was composed by a series of copper arches that created a connection with the existing curves of the building.
An outdoor gallery space toured the building creating an exterior circulation that led the user into the hydroponic and recreational areas.
All these features around water create a dialogue and an interaction between the users. Not only the space can be multi functional, serving as a recreational space for the Olympics games, it could also work as a place for tranquility and awareness around water. It could also offer a new experience for the people that live in the area. The overall product will be to expose a new critical reuse by rethinking the existing interior space in terms of water culture, mobility and experiences.
