Lacaton & Vassal . Aurélien Le Roux
Jean Martial’s site occupies a very privileged position by the sea, in a sequence of public spaces from Cépérou to the coast. Facing the Palmistes square, Jean Martial is both its double and its opposite: one opened, the other closed, together they form an exceptional ensemble.
The project densifies the southwest of the terrain, in order to release the garden.
A regular structure occupies and fill the bounded space between the alignment of the building B and the enclosing wall on the West and in the South. It stands 4 m away from the existing buildings, and defines three main floors over the ground floor: the two first ones settle at the floors level of building A and B, the third one forms a high terrace belvedere. The maximal height, facing building B, is lower than the roofing and decreasing southward, on Léopold avenue.
The structure is metallic, long-span, with steel-concrete floors, built in the way of the aerospace installations of CSG in Kourou. It proposes large-capacity volumes and free floors. Walkways connect them with the existing floors, and step over the 4m wide space between buildings, planted with lianas and epiphytes.
The structure is surrounded by a green curtain: climbing and hanging plants, epiphytes; it becomes the support of a beautiful vertical garden that will quickly transform the building and will give its final image.
The project creates a new built ensemble, created by the old and new buildings, connected at every level, that makes possible to gather most of the program and all the exhibitions.
GARDEN
The” forests garden of Guiana ” project is to bring on the site forms and components from the forests of Guyana to make a garden of a very singular shape, laid out on bases more naturalists than those of traditional gardens.
A garden to simply speak of trees, plants and inhabitants of the forests of Guiana, that will have the vocation to show the forest as a naturalist and cultural treasure of Guiana.
The 8 spaces of the garden, constituting the project, arise from the organization of the old buildings and from the implementation of the new building. Each space will host a state, a shape or a particular component of the forest. In addition, the mangrove swamp composed by mangrove trees cyclically covers the coast of Cayenne.
Among the 8 spaces: the garden of the plants mobility of the forest occupying the ” forest creeks ” generated by the interval between the new and old buildings, or the garden of lianas and climbing plants with flowers of the Guyanese forests, constituting the vertical garden that covers the new building. And also the garden undergrowth shelter in the center of the site, where a shelter will be inserted on the existing building.
To realize such a garden, using a typical, even endemic vegetation of Guiana, a specific working method will be organized that corresponds to the naturalistic sense of the garden, following Roberto Burle-Marx example in nearby Brazil, a few years ago, as well as an economic principle of application and maintenance appropriate to this singular project.
BUILDINGS’ RENOVATION
The position for the historic buildings restoration will lean on a voluntarily minimalist approach of respect and preservation of the building in its current state, as its story and uses has transmitted it to us.
This restoration will be managed without will of return to a former state, to respect and value the real building’s story.
The stratigraphy of varied components, constituted by the traces of time, the succession of users and times, has built a value and a strong and specific patrimonial identity, that we absolutely wish to maintain, without erasing the age and the authenticity conferred by time. The preservation of all these forms of variations constitutes our main directive for the project this ensemble restoration.
All the necessary building works will be done to seriously and durably recondition the buildings and make them exploitable for the uses of the project.
The program of building works for the main buildings A and B will mainly consist in: cleaning the useless elements, preserving the spatial organization, renovate the structural works, the floors, in bad condition, restore with discernment and precaution coatings and distempers, preserving them as possible, restore the existing windows, doors and shutters, and complete them by new identical elements, when they do not exist, reconstruct the demolished works, the staircases, the balustrades in a simple way, without any interpretation.
FUNCTIONING
The project gathers the largest part of the programs in a homogeneous ensemble including the old buildings A and B and the new building. The spaces of permanent and temporary exhibitions work from a common reception located in the building E. The temporary ones are at the ground floor of the new building, in a generous volume, the permanent ones, on the 1st and 2nd floors, distributed in the old buildings A and B, and in the new one. There are no permanent exhibitions on the ground floor of A and B buildings.
This configuration offers many possible configurations, and proposes to the public an exhibition route (parcours) from the ground floor up to the high terrace belvedere on the 3 ° floor, via all the floors and from a building to another.
The children’s playground is placed on the new building’s 1 ° floor, in the heart of the museum. This location takes into account the necessity of a protected space, but also the will to make an exceptional place for this activity. The place is very privileged: protected, but in the heart of the museum. Directly connected to all the exhibition spaces and offering a new point of view that no other place in Cayenne proposes.
CLIMATIC CONCEPTION
The bioclimatic conception of the buildings’ envelope in view of the local climate led us to reduce the project technical installations to the minimum. The great majority of the project will function with natural ventilation and without cooling system. Consequently, no maintenance and no ways for networks will have to be planned.
The cooling system and the air conditioning will be installed in the premises according to the program.
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Location : Cayenne, French Guiana
Design years : Competition, non prize winner 2013
Client : Conseil général de la Guyane
Architects :
Anne Lacaton & Jean Philippe Vassal, Aurélien Le Roux
with, Cloé Cazade, Alejandro Arocha, Gaëtan Redelsperger, collaborators.
Cyrille Marlin (landscape architect)
Laboratoire IRB (scenography)
Anais Ortiz-Descloquemant (conservation préventive)
Engineering :
AIA Ingénierie (concrete structure), CESMA (metal structure), Choulet Ingénierie (systems), TRIBU (thermal studies), OTG / BTC (cost), Vincent Hedont (acoustics)
Program :
Exhibition rooms, offices, 250 seats theater, documentation center, shop, restaurant
Area : Existing 2 950 m² + New building 4 334 m²
Cost : 23,5 M€ net
