Every summer, the mediterranean forest’s conservation offices take place into the firetowers. The guards usually spend 5 months on the look out, from June to October, from sunrise to dawn. The Figuerolles national park, located in the region of Saint-Mitre-les-Remparts near Marseille, used to have a temporary firetower, very basic, and very exposed to the wind and solar radiations, that was taken to pieces every year, in the end of summer. The municipality launched the construction of a permanent building, to host 2 guards during the summer season.
Firetowers became a recurrent element into the mediterranean forests’s landscape. The new firetower takes place on a natural headland, into the heart of the Figuerolles national park. Its location offers to the « ONF » guards, large open views to the south and west directions, on the Lèbre plateau, on the city of Martigues, and on the Nerthe massif.
The « Vigie de Figuerolles » has been conceived as a pre-feb structure in order to minimize the length of construction. Integrated to the site and landscape, the project respects environment and offers to its occupants, a functional and pleasant work station. The interior space is composed of a work station for two, of a central wooden furniture containing the technical material and chairs, dry toilets and a terrace. We wished to create the most quiet look out, especially during the inoccupied months. In order to minimize its impact to the ground, and to create an aerial volume, the building anchor is made by a unique central leg. The design of this leg is inspired by the trees’s natural shapes. As a nest, this unique volume entirely made of douglas wood is designed to exhale solitude, structural performance and relation with the distant landscape. In this context of important climatic constraints (wind and heat), thermal and acoustic comfort turns out to be very important. Windows occultations is made by folding shutters, which, once they are spread, are offering to the occupants shadowed outside spaces. The reinforced isolation of the project, made of woodfibre, will garanty a good thermal comfort. Widely opened to the landscape, the firetower will fold up on itself when the summer’s gone. In order to be self-ruling, and because the hut is off the grid, dry toilets and solar panels allow a recharge of necessary communication devices. The interior space is designed as an extension of the outside. The transparence of glass and the use of a raw and robust material as wood, refers to the surrounding forest. During the winter season, the « Vigie » is completely fold up on itself, hidden and protected from vandalism by the folding shutters. Because the shutters are entirely clad in douglas, and because the observatory terrace folds up as well, the project becomes a simple compact, protected, and inaccessible volume, minimizing its visual impact.
The stairs and handrails are taken to pieces as well, to allow the terrace to fold up. The terraces’s V shaped leg alone will stand up, testifying to a dormant activity. Through the materials choices and the construction system, the « Vigie » perfectly blends into the landscape. The ingenious folding system of shutters, stair and terrace, will garanty the building’s protection over the extented periods of closing, during which it will become a signal into the mediterranean landscape.
