Concept – landscape insertion
Our aim is to go beyond the traditional divide between architecture and external works and to conceive a construction that is not an “isolated” object just “parachuted” into the site which is then “accompanied” with a landscaping scheme that simply fills in the “voids” left around the building.
By its very nature, a stadium is “living architecture, its image changing as it gets progressively filled with the spectators:
• “empty”, the sculptural object is immobile, fixed and inanimated. Its imposing volume in a large flat plain on the outskirts of Cergy marks it as a “monument” on an urban scale, a “landmark”, a benchmark visible from afar
• “filled”, the architectural object disappears, fades and it’s the public, this living “magma”, resonating and fluid which takes over and “paints” its image
Our will here is to dissimulate the “architectural object” by inscribing it inside a park “promenade” that links the major entrances north and south of the site.
This landscape system which builds on its settings, with a layout parallel to existing rain water trenches and ditches, lifts up, “dilates” in its central part to become in a “natural” way the stadium tribune before lowering down and connecting with the north entrance.
Materials
The structure of the tribune which can hold 1 000 spectators is in reinforced concrete. Under the tribune, on the ground floor, are located the changing rooms and complementary spaces (entrance hall for the players, officials, bar,...)
The tensile roof membrane in precontraint PVC by Sege Ferrari protects the public from sun and rain whilst at the same time allowing through a soft diffuse natural light.
The roof structure is constituted of two main arched glulam beams reinforced by steel tubes above the roof membrane with a variable geometry as it “dilates” in its central part over the tribunes.
On the North and South extremities the roof opens out a triangular void marking the two main acces points to the tribune.
The translucid caracteristics of tne membrane allows a play of light and shadow by day which becomes glowing “lantern” by night.
