CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY CENTRE
The municipality of Coudoux is a residential hillside town whose urban fabric is largely made up of detached housing, with little real density.
A water supply canal runs through the hillside and provides the municipality with drinking water. Water is a significant presence on the site: an old reservoir stands opposite the project plot, which also contains an existing well.
The reservoir, now abandoned, became one of the starting points for the project, which seeks to incorporate it into the overall composition. Its stone construction was also an important reference.
The site has an agricultural past, having originally contained a former sheepfold that was later extended and converted into a wine cellar. The project therefore includes the rehabilitation of this existing sheepfold to accommodate two music rooms.
The first intention was to ensure that this new public facility, located at the heart of a low-density residential area, could become a new centre: a point of reference and gathering at neighbourhood scale, countering the inward-looking logic of individual houses and reintroducing the idea of public space and encounter.
Within this dispersed urban fabric, the first gesture was to build walls around the site, enclosing the plot and defining a spatial framework. This enclosure opens towards the street and the reservoir, allowing the latter to enter into the composition. An oculus aligned with the main building establishes a strong visual relationship between the two structures.
Along the street, the wall is set back from the existing alignment, creating an initial threshold within the sequence of public spaces while also providing sufficient distance from which to perceive the reservoir, an element that embodies the memory of the site.
The public space is conceived as a sequence. The first area is associated with the rehabilitated sheepfold and functions as a true public square. The space extends diagonally along an alignment established between two stone pyramids and the existing well.
The well occupies the precise threshold between two distinct spaces: the square in front of the sheepfold and the space surrounding the main building.
The latter is conceived as a structuring civic building and is deliberately staged within the site. It is raised on a concrete plinth, creating a natural entrance sequence. This base invites visitors to walk around the building and discover the entrances to the four rooms located on the ground floor.
The structural system reinforces this movement through the building. On the ground floor, a central column supports four beams whose geometries respond to the entrance sequence and guide circulation. This strong structural framework allows the floor to be freely appropriated, with partitions arranged according to changing needs.
These partitions deliberately express their lightweight and temporary character through a finish of yellow acoustic fabric.
The geometry also encourages movement by placing the two staircases in opposite corners. A rotational movement around the central column is therefore inscribed both in the plan and in the experience of circulating through the building.
The staircases, together with all the ancillary spaces, are located within the unheated peripheral zone between the load-bearing stone envelope and the insulating brickwork. The stone therefore remains exposed within these areas.
The brickwork, by contrast, is finished with a red earth render, which is also used throughout the heated interior spaces.
Whereas the ground floor establishes close relationships with its immediate context and the enclosing walls, the large upper-floor room rises above these walls and connects the surrounding landscapes through its centre, directing the gaze towards the distance. Four different landscapes penetrate the room with great intensity, enriching its spatial quality and giving it a distinctly public character.
These views are framed as deep openings through thick fixed window frames set within lowered alcoves, themselves lined in the same material as the window joinery.
The building is therefore conceived as a hybrid construction.
Load-bearing solid stone is used for the outer square, establishing a material relationship with the existing reservoir and addressing the public space.
Insulating brickwork finished with earth render forms the inner square, defining the heated volume.
The floor slabs are made of concrete, as are the ring beams expressed on the façades.
Deep lintels in exposed concrete mark both the entrances and the openings. At the same time, they articulate the tectonic interlocking between stone and concrete.
All exterior exposed concrete elements were cast without visible formwork tie holes, a significant technical achievement given that the upper parapet reaches a height of 2.80 metres and therefore generates considerable concrete pressure during casting.
The faces of the concrete ring beams vary in depth between the plinth, the upper ground-floor band and the parapet (-5 / +5 / +10 cm), expressing the desire to project the form into the site and give it a sense of activity, like a living organism pulsating from inside to outside.
The stone is laid vertically using a traditional technique, with lime grout producing recessed joints. This gives the building a sense of controlled solidity and measured power.
Sunlight accompanies the project throughout. It is used to cast shadows across the different planes of the building, to penetrate the staircases through carved openings and bring in morning and evening light, and to enter the recessed inner lintels on the ground floor.
Above all, the sun helps anchor the project in the place from which it emerges, beneath the metaphysical Mediterranean sky.
