Rosa Parks Community centre
The Rosa Parks hall, featuring a rich program developed in consultation with local residents, is located at the heart of a newly designed and simultaneously built landscaped park. This community space is dedicated to local associations as well as the children of the nearby school, offering recreational activities, cultural events, and even cooking workshops.
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Through this project, our ambition was to create a simple, robust building that serves both its users and the neighborhood. The architecture aims to be both humble and unifying, integrating harmoniously into its environment while affirming its role as a public facility.
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The building’s shape and materials pay tribute to the architectural heritage of this suburb near Paris, particularly the brick-built social housing structures.
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By reinterpreting the use of brick—an enduring and timeless material—the project follows in the tradition of buildings that have stood the test of time. This choice is particularly relevant for the construction of a public facility.
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We wanted to echo a time when materials were scarcer and their reuse was prioritized for economic reasons. As a result, a large portion of the materials recovered during the demolition of the previous pavilion was reused in the project, either visibly or discreetly.
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The response to environmental challenges is based on a comprehensive approach to sustainability, considering resource efficiency, budget constraints, the durability of the building, and the origin of the materials used. We prioritized a bioclimatic and low-tech approach, focusing on robustness rather than technology.
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STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES
From the street, a generous forecourt invites visitors in, offering shaded benches under large trees or the option to take shelter under the entrance canopy.
The modest size and simple roof shape respond directly to the needs of the interior spaces: a generous ceiling height and human-scale façades.
The interior layout is clear and unfolds on a single ground-floor level:
• On the park side, spaces dedicated to activities; and on the east side, service areas, with a central corridor illuminated at both ends by large windows protected with brick mashrabiya screens.
• The reception area, which also serves as a café or exhibition space, opens onto both the forecourt and the park.
• The reception desk is made of concrete mixed with bricks recovered from the construction site.
• The large rooms benefit from natural light thanks to skylights in the roof, which also ensure natural ventilation.
The building maintains a close relationship with the surrounding landscape:
• The fully glazed west façade allows the interior spaces to fully enjoy the view of the park. Consisting of double glass doors, it can be completely opened to extend activities outdoors.
• Some trees in the park have been strategically placed to protect this façade from the sun’s rays in the late afternoon, particularly in summer.
• Set back from the street, the positioning of the building allowed for the preservation of two large trees and the creation of a spacious forecourt in front of the main entrance.
• All rainwater from the project is directed towards the park, where it naturally infiltrates into the ground.
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CONSTRUCTION ASPECTS
The building’s structure is based on 22 cm thick load-bearing brick façades, sourced from a brickyard in northern France.
A traditional timber frame, made from wood from the Jura region, spans the building from one façade to the other, without any internal columns or load-bearing walls. This configuration allows for great flexibility in layout and ensures the building’s longevity, making future adaptations easier.
The exterior brick façades feature a subtle arrangement of brick patterns, integrating transparent sections with mashrabiya screens, reliefs, and vertical elements that mark the structural lines.
Inside, partitions and brick cladding, left exposed with a thickness of 15 cm, provide significant robustness. This deliberately massive material ensures thermal inertia, contributing to indoor comfort.
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BIOCLIMATIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL APPROACH
The monolithic volume of the building is subtly sculpted to create recesses. These roof overhangs act as solar protections for the south and west façades.
• The south façade benefits from the shade of two large trees in the forecourt, as well as the canopy protecting the main entrance.
• The west façade, meanwhile, consists of load-bearing walls that also function as vertical sunbreakers, filtering sunlight and preventing overheating of glazed spaces in summer.
The building’s natural cooling is achieved without the use of air conditioning:
• A natural ventilation system cools the building at night during summer. Skylights in the roof, combined with motorized openings in the façade, ensure effective airflow.
• The thermal inertia of the brick walls and concrete floor regulates indoor temperatures, providing comfort throughout the seasons.
The architectural design makes full use of the site’s available resources:
• Stones from a demolished pavilion were reused to create outdoor furniture (benches). The remaining bricks, tiles, and stones were crushed and reintegrated almost entirely into the sub-base beneath the ground floor slab.
• Natural materials were prioritized at every stage of the project: insulation made of hemp and wood wool, linoleum flooring, exterior joinery in spruce wood, interior cladding in wooden panels, and ceilings made of compressed wood wool.
