Les Halles Constructing Media Library and Multifunctional House / Zita Architectes

Les Halles Constructing Media Library and Multifunctional House / Zita Architectes

Textual content description offered by the architects. The mission goals to remodel a “temple of consumption” (the present industrial constructing) right into a “cathedral of tradition”; not within the sense of changing one with the opposite, however by taking the most effective of each. 

Inside the framework of the rehabilitation, the mission preserves the qualities of the industrial constructing – specifically, the big floor space it gives and the liberty of format it affords by the absence of any load-bearing partitions or posts over giant distances – and gives what is important for the correct functioning of a public facility: gentle, views to the surface, consolation, high quality of areas and a robust id.

Just a few masonry partitions and the decrease slab are preserved and, on this base and inside this enclosure, a brand new mission is created and based mostly on a volumetric system that can transcend all of the goals of this system: a system of shells is ready as much as be seen past the present partitions to disclose and transfigure a brand new id for the constructing. They are going to thus mark the concept of renewal and a profound transformation of the positioning.

The shells are all an identical; every of them is glazed on its highest aspect to deliver pure gentle at any time of the day into the center of the media library and to get views of the sky, the bushes, the church tower, and many others. As well as, the multiplication of the shells creates an “egg field” form that improves the acoustics of the session areas.

A metal framework helps the whole roof, together with 750m² with out intermediate helps. An EPDM membrane covers all of the roofs and the transoms of the aluminum home windows. Metallic gargoyles showcase the rainwater flowing from the gutter community to the encompassing inexperienced areas.

Many of the media library’s areas are open. Thus, beneath this emblematic roof, the few closed and remoted capabilities are distributed all through the huge corridor. They’re recognized in “containers” that construction the completely different clusters and areas. This association makes it doable, with out partitioning or artifice, to outline areas on a human scale and conducive to the appropriation of the premises. These containers additionally make the areas much more open. Certainly, the partitions are conceived as helps for shows, image rails, projections, and above all shelving to free the house from linear shelving models and to favor exhibitions and circulation between the completely different thematic areas.