Interlocked and superimposed

The Sports and Leisure center of Saint-Cloud enjoys visual continuity and functional clarity.

Koz Architectes recently completed an original Sports and Leisure Center in Saint-Cloud, a town/suburban district in West quarter of Paris. This young Parisian architecture studio was founded in 1999 by Cristophe Ouhayoun and Nicolas Ziesel, and has quite a few important projects of public facility architecture to its name in France. For example, the Emergency Centers for the Fire Brigade in Quimperlè, Dieppe and Joué Lès Tours, and some sports and leisure structures such as the complexes in Courbevoie and in Forges Les Bains.

The Sports Complex in Saint-Cloud was built following a competition in 2003. It materialized in 2008 following a 5-year period of executive designs and building-site operations. This curious and audacious construction stands-out against a background characterized primarily by small private homes in the perfect Parisian style, the magnificent Saint Cloud Park and buildings in an evident neo-Haussmann style, excluding the illustrious Villa Dall’Ava constructed nearby by OMA in 1991. It may be just a coincidence, but if we observe the buildings, we might feel that we are actually in Rotterdam rather than in the bourgeois Saint-Cloud district of Paris. The courageous use of light and color and the hap-hazard arrangement of the volumes, were unquestionably inspired by the typically Dutch contemporary architecture. The square shapes transform into colored parallelepipeds to produce a vaguely cubist composition, that, thanks to its joyful colorful anti-conformism, was clearly inspired by obvious ludic infantile imagination.

The Center exists thanks to the courage of the Saint-Cloud City Council. The center provides a number of new services for its community, in addition to revitalizing the district’s architectonic image, projecting it straight into the heart of contemporary living. Despite its strong chromatic and style contrast with the surroundings, the building actually has close links with the nearby children’s school, and forms a sort of functional extension to it. Its position close to the school building generates dynamic interstitial and transition spaces; through the internal walkways these burst enthusiastically onto the large patio on the roof.
The functional design is unquestionably one of the least visible peculiarities on first glance, as the complex contains two totally autonomous destinations within the same structure.

As the site available was fairly narrow, the choice was based on superimposition and interlock of the functional areas that are accessed through separate entrances: the sports center with climbing equipment is located on the ground and on part of the first floors, with the recreational facilities on the remainder of the first floor, the whole of the second floor and the patio roof space accessible by means of a ramp. This interlocking and superimposition arrangement creates openings in the building. These allow natural light to penetrate and reach every nook and cranny inside. Secondly, this architectonic arrangement creates visual connections between the spaces and the activities of the program. In my opinion, this is one of the project’s key attributes: constant visual contact. Each person will be able to see and perceive the presence of the others, irrespective of whether they are involved in different activities two floors below or above, without compromising the functional autonomy or the mutual organization.

Another emerging character of the project, and I would go as far as to say the loudest and most evident, is the courageous use of color. The color combinations are audacious; they range from black to green, from yellow to red to orange. They characterize all of the interiors where a dedicated color contributes to identifying the spaces and their specific functions. A strong identification mark is imprinted on the entire building; even the main façade opens onto the public space through a colored glass surface based on the same chromatic range used throughout.

This brusque chromatic definition of the spaces creates the curious sensation of wishing to inform the guests about the existence of invisible functional barriers that do little more than emphasize the promiscuity of the spaces. The same degree of generosity has been given to the corridors. In actual fact they are transformed into non-transition spaces and this would appear to confirm the tendency towards non-specialized space, that is undivided, always usable and available for group social intercourse.