OLGGA Architectes . photos : © Stéphane Aboudaram | WE ARE CONTENT(S)
Built for the 1924 Olympic Games, the Stade Yves-du-Manoir is emblematic in French sports history. The location of many sporting events since its creation, notably with the French national rugby team and subsequently with Racing 92 in TOP 14, a century later, the stadium will host the Paris 2024 Olympic Games field hockey events. On this occasion, the entire sports facility has been redeveloped to provide facilities with the Paris 2024 Olympic Games values. Developed in association with Celnikier & Grabli Architectes, the stadium consists of 10 playing fields and two buildings of which one allocated to football and rugby designed by OLGGA.
The design intent stems from the synthesis between the precise integration of the building function and use within its context. The masterplan gives order – rationalises and assures the site operations and sporting activities. The playing fields and buildings are planned to uniformly occupy the plot, in particular, the centre of the site. Facilities linked to the same sport are grouped together, creating four distinct sports poles to free the spaces on its boundary – privileged locations endowed with outstanding nature and biodiversity.
The design goes beyond the brief to provide more functionality and more user quality. Located within a flood zone, the development highlights this contradiction to build in an area potentially subject to climatic variations. For obvious quality-in-use reasons, the changing rooms and sports facilities are located on the ground floor, built on stilts above the rising water level. A ground level itinerary for the thousands of players who practice sports daily avoids changing levels wearing stops.
The sports premises are all set out along an axis that crosses the site from north to south. Each facility is located as close as possible to the playing field to which it is attributed. The scale of construction integrates within the ambiguity between the architecture and its landscape.
Construction and context mutually enrich each other in a relationship that gives the facility its identity.
The assertive location of the building within the site contrasts with its landscape. Simple clean refined volumes give the facility impact that accentuate its scale with which they dialogue. The ground floor is clad with timber logs of different diametres that forms a thick facade with a vibrant and random pattern. A suspended volume in anthracite metal cladding, the stand above opens towards the east to frame the main playing field. Despite its 250-metre length, the architecture is discreet, supporting activities and allowing sporting practice to deploy and be expressed.
Durable and resistant to contact with water, the ground floor concrete structure cedes to a timber structure above. Designed to be visible, it wraps around the stand creating a unified space with a warm atmosphere. In the centre, the ambulatory widens to accommodate a transversal refreshment kiosk. The perforated steel facade facilitates the view towards the playing fields located to the west and the visitor reestablishes visual contact with the entire site.
A vast flat space within the site, the building’s roof terrace provides the opportunity to rethink the user relationship with the landscape. Accessible and planted with vegetation, it provides a suspended promenade, additional height to rediscover the adjoining spaces. Vision of the horizon evokes distance, an opportunity for the visitor to pause, to confront the context and to interact with the site. Intensive vegetation contributes to thermal comfort, rainwater retention and the development of biodiversity. Beyond the visual limit of the observer with the ground and the sky, the facilities redefine the skyline.
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