Community hall
Spread out over a vast area along the Mauldre valley, Beynes is composed of an old town, home to the majority of services and institutions, and adjoined by three residential hamlets, a military camp and a national forest. At the junction of these
four inhabited neighbourhoods, and away from any urban development, the new community hall asserts itself prominently in this hilly agricultural landscape punctuated by suburban housing. The challenge in designing this building is to fit in both, a domestic and a rural scale, while at the same time offering a central facility with which all residents can identify, thereby reinforcing their sense of belonging to this dispersed territory.
Located alongside the departmental road serving the valley, the building overlooks an agricultural wasteland created by the same road, the railway line below and an old local road, to which the building must logically connect to. A hybrid is formed from an iconic "roadside" architecture and a regionalist reimagination of the agricultural barn, the hall emerges from the ground as a softly materialized mineral
volume, covered by a two-faceted, slender gable roof that cuts into the landscape.
The building is composed of three architectural elements whose roles and identification are made clear by the change of materiality. The mass-colored concrete base anchors the architectural object in its site. Going beyond the simple
function of a wall and protective volume, the plinth expands like an attic, extending into a terrace that allows the inhabitation of the slope and the distant landscape. The wooden roof framework sits on the top of this plinth, outlining the object and its attachment to the sky. This additional layer is made legible by the clear division between the concrete of the base and the airier exterior treatment of
wood cladding, which highlights the building's mediating role. Lastly, the metal roof unfolds in two independent sections, completing the building by amplifying its interaction with the landscape through the projection of the overhanging roof outside the close volume. Its slope, lightness and its materiality make it a decisive element in the dialogue between the landscape, the pavilions facing it and the program.
The twofold context of the community hall means that its composition can be approached in two stages: first, by presenting elements that can be immediately grasped on the scale of the landscape, and then by drawing attention to the
details of the texture and assembly of complementary materials.
The volume has a rectangular floor plan and remains fundamentally elementary. The south façade folds slightly to create a large volume that can be separated into two rooms. This folding allows views to be directed towards the entrance and exit of the town. As an element of territorial identity, this festive barn invokes both, urban and landscape dimensions.
The building is defined by a technical layer to the north, which organizes two distinct entrances that visually cross the building. The equipment was designed to offer adaptable spaces through the integration of a mobile wall forming a large 230 m2 room or two smaller ones. The folding of the façade also makes it easier to integrate the movable wall and to distinguish two volumes within the single space of the large auditorium, which then form acoustic alcoves.
The internal materials are intended to be as simple and rustic as the exterior. The interior vertical walls are treated in two ways to emphasize the horizontal nature of the landscape, to control the acoustics and to make the base and cover legible from the inside. The mass-stained concrete base is revealed on the inside between the wall separating the technical areas and the hall, while the internally insulated peripheral walls are clad with perforated wood panels.
The facility is designed around three basic bioclimatic principles: the installation of an efficient canadian well to cool or heat incoming air, the management of thermal inertia through the mass of the concrete and roof overhangs to protect against direct sunlight in summer.
Sharply defined by the surrounding infrastructure, the site's layout was designed to acknowledge its topographical and hydrological characteristics. To minimize the damage to local flora and fauna, while reducing the economic impact of the development, the simple widening of the local road allowed the building's base to be installed, along with a linear parking area planted with trees, without creating large pockets, in keeping with the valley's landscape.
