25 - Centre d’Animation Saint-Blaise

25 - Centre d’Animation Saint-Blaise - Bruther - 2014

15 Rue Mouraud, Paris

The centre was developed by Bruther to provide a range of public services for the community of the heavily populated and densely urbanised area of Saint-Blaise. The district represents an enclave, with repetitive high buildings with complex geometries, mostly from the 70’s-80’s outlining a closed arena.

The project comprises a vertically-stacked structure with a small footprint – helping to preserve one of the area’s rare open spaces. Lower storeys are enclosed by a glazed curtain wall that retains a visual connection between the street and a courtyard. This transparency also maintains links between other public facilities situated around the plaza. Above the double-height atrium are further windows and a cantilevered balcony that wraps around the building, including the concave long elevations. The transparent cladding allows the concrete structure, with its diagonal bracing system, to be seen from outside. Black corrugated cladding surrounds the upper portion of a sports hall dedicated to circus arts, which is located on the top floor. A gauzy mesh above this level allows light to reach the glass vaulted ceiling for a bright interior. Folding doors set in the glazed facade open onto the large foyer, where a suspended ceiling is wrapped in mirrored panels so that it reflects the outside. A freestanding plywood structure resides in this space. It features gable-shaped openings that create rooms for informal meetings. Materials throughout the interior are left in their raw state, with exposed concrete and plywood.

Flexible, the new centre is thought as a sustainable architecture. The project answers to the functions but doesn’t freeze them. Generosity as a common denominator of all spaces, to allow reinterpretation and follow evolutions of uses and needs. In a compact volume, the project aggregates a large diversity of functions, spaces, uses, relations to the outside, materials, and displays them in a neighborhood where there was no diversity.