Roller park et city-stade
Located alongside the RER A railway line, at the end of Avenue des Murs du Parc in Vincennes, the project delivers a hybrid sports facility bringing together urban wheeled sports and a multi-purpose playing court.
Set at the end of a cul-de-sac and directly adjacent to the Vincennes “Dôme” swimming complex, the site represents the final phase of a wider regeneration initiative on former railway land. Originally earmarked for a pedestrian bridge, the plot had remained unused until today. The PEMB authority chose to transform this residual space into a sports amenity serving the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The project’s main challenge was to accommodate three distinct uses within a restricted footprint, while integrating sensitively into the surrounding urban fabric. The design responds in three key moves. First, the sports court is positioned in line with the existing building frontages, completing the street’s urban sequence. Elevated three metres above ground, it creates a sheltered, open-air space beneath it. Second, an external ramp winds around the perimeter, providing universal access to the court and defining the boundary of a wheeled-sports circuit. This route incorporates features suited to roller skating, skateboarding and BMX riding. Beneath the elevated court sits a bowl — a rare facility in the area — protected from the weather to ensure year-round use. Finally, the building’s setback from the property line frees space for a rain garden, enhancing ecological performance and contributing to on-site water management.
BUILDING MOVEMENT
The constraints of the site led us to imagine a vertical layering of two distinct sports programmes: a multi-sports court and a skatepark.
From this decision emerged a unique spatial condition — one that offers a sheltered bowl, both rare and emblematic. As the only element visible from the cul-de-sac, the elevated court naturally extends the urban frontage, elegantly concluding the built sequence. Its position creates a bold cantilever projecting over the public realm, signalling both the identity and the entrance of the facility.
The ambition goes beyond providing technical surfaces suited to sporting practice; it aims to establish a genuine social landscape. Lines, slopes and volumes generate a range of situations, inviting athletic performance as readily as moments of pause, observation or exchange. In this way, the project becomes an extension of bodily movement itself: it can be learned, appropriated and adapted, continually enriched by the diversity of practices that intersect within it.
URBAN AGORA
This approach — centred on bodily interaction and appropriation — generates a multitude of intimate architectural moments: a low wall that welcomes both discussion and practice, a ramp that becomes a vantage point, a stepped platform that transforms into a gathering place. Every detail is conceived as an invitation to connect, whether through sport, conversation or spontaneous encounter.
The project is also embedded in Vincennes’ rich and active local association network. Community groups already engaged in cultural and sporting activities now find a new anchor point here — a setting suited to everyday use as well as collective events. This close connection with the hyper-local fabric ensures that the skatepark and city stadium are not isolated objects, but living components of an existing social ecosystem.
OPEN ACCESS, SHARED SPACE
The desire to create a truly inclusive public facility led us to move beyond mere programmatic requirements. Rather than opting for an external lift — costly to maintain and disproportionate to the scale of the intervention — we chose to incorporate a gentle, accessible ramp. This continuous path allows everyone, including people with disabilities, to reach the upper level. It becomes the project’s unifying line: it embraces the site, connects the two programmes, and integrates skatepark elements along its route.
As it rises, the ramp offers a sequence of varied situations: here, a coping bar doubles as a guardrail; there, an opening invites users to sit and rest; further along, the guardrail becomes a wall-ride surface. The ascending movement gradually reveals the multi-sports court while offering sweeping views over the skatepark below.
Beyond its functional role, the project acts as a civic catalyst. Modest in its architectural expression, it nonetheless plays a strategic role in shaping social interaction. By articulating accessible routes, shared viewpoints and collective practice areas, it fosters a sense of community where generations, disciplines and social backgrounds intermingle. It reflects a contemporary conviction: the quality of urban space is measured not only by its programme or aesthetics, but by its capacity to strengthen social capital, cultivate mutual trust and support cohesion in a diverse yet united society.
RAW MATTER, MEASURED FOOTPRINT
To meet the structural demands of the cantilever, reduce ground supports and free the ground-floor skate circulation, the superstructure relies on a composite timber-and-concrete Vierendeel beam. This technical solution spans the entire width of the multi-sport platform while keeping the skatepark beneath unobstructed.
Material harmony unifies the project. Concrete — chosen for its acoustic qualities and natural affinity with wheeled sports — enters into dialogue with timber, which lightens the structure and opens it to the city. Acoustic ceilings and a cushioned sports surface complete the multi-sports court.
Robustness goes hand in hand with environmental intention. Concrete and stainless steel guarantee durability under intensive use, while the timber structure significantly reduces the project’s carbon footprint. A distinctive red tone weaves throughout, binding the project visually and strengthening its identity.
ORIGINS AND LEGACY
A retention basin, integrated into the public garden and open to the street, ensures responsible storm-water management and contributes to micro-climatic regulation at neighbourhood scale. Built on a former railway site, the project also enabled soil remediation and the revitalisation of previously unused land.
Naming the facility after Alice Milliat was an intentional gesture — anchoring the project in a legacy of advocacy. A tireless pioneer of women’s sport, Milliat organised the first Women’s World Games in Vincennes in 1922, fighting prejudice to secure the presence of women in competitive sport. Open, inclusive and civic-minded, the facility pays tribute to her vision and extends her commitment to accessibility and equality.
Open to all, welcoming and accessible, the project aspires to become a space of exchange and coexistence — a shared ground where residents, seasoned athletes, beginners and passers-by come together. Its universal vocation is its true strength: making architecture not a boundary, but a platform for connection and collective experience.
