Manuelle Gautrand Architecture

Le Forum

Manuelle Gautrand Architecture
12. April 2016

PROJECT DETAILS

Project
"LE FORUM" Sports, associative and events facility
Place Gissy, Saint-Louis (68) – France

Program
Great sports/shows multifunctional hall, festival/events hall, reception area, locker rooms, storage area.

Architect
Manuelle Gautrand Architecture
Manuelle Gautrand, principal Architect, Cécile Ortolo, project manager.

Client
City of Saint-Louis

Project Management
S.E.R.S.

Project Team
Structure engineers: AIC
Fluids engineers: ALTO
Quantity Surveyor: CHOLLEY
Acoustic: JP LAMOUREUX
Fire Safety: CSD-FACES
Roads and networks engineers: OTCI

Other Contributors
Management and coordination: C2Bi (Strasbourg)
Technical controller: Qualiconsult (Strasbourg)
H&S Coordination: Veritas (Didenheim)

Total floor space
5.713 sqm
Great Hall: 1 870 sqm
- Concerts/Shows configuration: 1 700 seats - Sports configuration: 1 000 bleacher seats, sports field: 44 x 26 m.
- Festival Hall: 870 sqm, 700 seats
- Reception hall: 300 sqm
- Storage rooms: 450 sqm

Steel frame
- Maximum range: 40 m for the Great Hall - 30 m for the Festival Hall
- Weight of the frame: around 350 tons
Work cost: 9,7 M€ vat excl.

Dates
- Competition: 2010
- Studies: 2011 - 2013
- Construction work:
Commencement of work: October 2013
Delivery of the building: December 2015 
- Opening to public: February 2016

Photo: Guillaume Guerin
Photo: Guillaume Guerin

The land, vast enough, is located close to the city center of Saint-Louis in an area mixing different scales and uses: it remains a residential area mainly made up of low height houses mingled with some characterless large-sized collective buildings, but it also includes offices and workshops for small companies, as well as a kindergarten and a primary school. 

The project has been designed to fit between these different built scales, in the smoothest possible way, by trying to minimize the breaks. 

Photo: Guillaume Guerin

The program also involves strong contrasts between reception/offices/lockers spaces which required small-sized volumes, and the Festival Hall and the Great Hall, the two main spaces of the project which are requiring substantially greater volumes.

Thus, between the relatively heterogeneous nature of the site and the one as well heterogeneous of the program elements, it was essential to work on a play with progressive volumes that could interconnect with each other while displaying the two key programs. 

Photo: Guillaume Guerin

The project is then made of several distinct volumes, linked up to one another in a way the smaller volumes are placed at the edge of the individual houses, and the more imposing ones placed at the center. At the end there are 13 volumes connected to each other gathered at the center of the site, like the pieces of one single puzzle in this work of compactness and articulation with the environment. 

Photo: Guillaume Guerin

They all fit in a unique writing because they are all covered with the same principles of forms, materials and openings. The roof of each volume is then systematically made of two slopes, inspired by the design of the roofs you can observe in the surroundings, alternating the orientation of the folded faces sometimes North-South, sometimes South-West, in order to capture a light each time different. The expanded metal, used as a cladding on all the facades, also contributes to this unity, and gives the project its originality. 

The project thus plays constantly with a double scale: One of fractioning that links the Forum with its urban context, and one of homogeneity that gives the building a strong and iconic design. 

Photo: Guillaume Guerin
Photo: Guillaume Guerin
Photo: Guillaume Guerin
Photo: Guillaume Guerin
Photo: Guillaume Guerin
Site Plan (Drawing: Manuelle Gautrand Architecture)
Floor Plan (Drawing: Manuelle Gautrand Architecture)
Section Diagram (Drawing: Manuelle Gautrand Architecture)

PROJECT DETAILS

Project
"LE FORUM" Sports, associative and events facility
Place Gissy, Saint-Louis (68) – France

Program
Great sports/shows multifunctional hall, festival/events hall, reception area, locker rooms, storage area.

Architect
Manuelle Gautrand Architecture
Manuelle Gautrand, principal Architect, Cécile Ortolo, project manager.

Client
City of Saint-Louis

Project Management
S.E.R.S.

Project Team
Structure engineers: AIC
Fluids engineers: ALTO
Quantity Surveyor: CHOLLEY
Acoustic: JP LAMOUREUX
Fire Safety: CSD-FACES
Roads and networks engineers: OTCI

Other Contributors
Management and coordination: C2Bi (Strasbourg)
Technical controller: Qualiconsult (Strasbourg)
H&S Coordination: Veritas (Didenheim)

Total floor space
5.713 sqm
Great Hall: 1 870 sqm
- Concerts/Shows configuration: 1 700 seats - Sports configuration: 1 000 bleacher seats, sports field: 44 x 26 m.
- Festival Hall: 870 sqm, 700 seats
- Reception hall: 300 sqm
- Storage rooms: 450 sqm

Steel frame
- Maximum range: 40 m for the Great Hall - 30 m for the Festival Hall
- Weight of the frame: around 350 tons
Work cost: 9,7 M€ vat excl.

Dates
- Competition: 2010
- Studies: 2011 - 2013
- Construction work:
Commencement of work: October 2013
Delivery of the building: December 2015 
- Opening to public: February 2016

Related articles

Other articles in this category