PORCHEVILLE C

A post-industrial scenario of a ruin of the Trente Glorieuses, Yvelines.

The Porcheville industrial site has been producing electricity since 1954 from several successive power stations, first coal-fired and then heavy fuel oilfired. The latter, with a total capacity of 2400 MW, is used as a back-up for peak consumption in the Ilede-France and Normandy regions. In the next 10 years, this industrial site, which has become a landmark in the Seine Valley landscape, will disappear. Wouldn’t it be interesting to reinvest this site to give meaning to the territory by offering the agricultural communities and the population of the Mantois a productive, learning and cultural place. In this sense, it seems relevant to preserve the metal structure, the accesses but above all the spatial qualities that this machine building offers.

The 135-hectare site opens up to the south, towards the Seine, a major axis for mobility, but it is surrounded by the city to the east and by the port of Limay to the west. This site thus becomes a strategic point where mobility converges, it is a new agricultural HUB creating employment, which relieves the international market of Rungis, by offering products and goods from the Seine Valley.

On the ground floor, the former 11m reinforced concrete base offers a dark and cool space for storage, supplying goods by river, road and rail. This is where mobility meets.

The large hall above the base is the space for meetings and mixed uses. Bright and continuous, this area could very well host the next agricultural show or major regional events. The atriums and the old lifting bridges make it very easy to move equipment and make the building very flexible, like the Fun Palace in Price. The space has a continuous curtain wall that offers a view of the Seine, the limestone cliffs and the A13. This translucent facade allows for the transparency of the uses and activities of this new centre.

Finally, the floors of the four units contain more intimate spaces such as the agricultural campus rooms and greenhouses for start-up experiments. Temporary accommodation is also available for workers or boatmen who decide to moor for a while in this agricultural centre.