Moulon Sports Center
At the heart of the Paris Saclay campus, the Moulon Sports Center is integrated into the vast sports complex located west of the Urban Development Zone of Le Moulon.
Extending out of a public park, the conception of the Sports Center focused on minimizing its architectural impact on the existing landscape, respecting and enhancing public use of the surrounding outdoor areas.
To that end, we took advantage of the site declivity towards the north by installing the building to the north-east of the site. A large public alley runs along the main building, ending south with a vast courtyard leading towards the main entrance. Set four meters above the sport grounds, this entrance stretches to the main hall located in the center of the building.
The large bay windows offer the visitors arriving on the courtyard a view on the different activities taking place on the levels below. We attached great importance to the convivial atmosphere of the building, to the interaction between different disciplines and to the value of natural light penetrating the whole space of the sports center.
Notions of materiality, space transparency and light were crucial to our conception of the project to establish a free-flowing relationship between the different spaces: the substructure as well as the tribunes are made of concrete. A large peripheral glass window strip unfolds along the entire lower portion of the facades following the natural topography of the site and its declination 4 meters above, while the higher portion is covered with a white aluminium cladding of regular pattern.
The roof complex above the non-heated tennis courts consists of a flexible composite membrane, giving a sense of lightness to the space. By filtering natural light, this shading structure brings optimal lighting to the interior allowing its users to play tennis without artificial lighting during the day.
Moreover, the roof complex is mechanically ventilated using structural tubes presenting multiple advantages such as preventing condensation or excessive moisture efficiently protecting the structures of the building. The other sport areas are covered by a saw-tooth roof introducing a diffused and non-dazzling natural light throughout the day in the gymnasiums.
Every detail is conceived as to give a sense of evidence and simplicity to the space. Invisible, the conceptual efforts vanish in favor of compositional fluidity. As a result, this rigorous approach gave rise to a building of striking discretion while remaining absolutely cohesive and adapted to its environment.
