Build with natural rocks

JARDIN MEMORIEL DES ATTENTATS DU 13 NOVEMBRE 2015 – Paris 4e 

On November 13, 2015, horror struck Paris. An evening of carefree enjoyment, going out, and friendship saw several neighborhoods turned into battlefields, in an asymmetric and violent war. Today, every Parisian, every French person, remembers where they were when they learned of the beginning of the attacks—the blast at the Stade de France, the shootings and explosions on café terraces, and inside the Bataclan concert hall. That night of November 13 traced a path of horror; a route now unchangeable and unforgettable through Paris neighborhoods scarred by violence, blood, death, and an uncertainty that has not faded. Six emblematic places of Parisian life were transformed and will never be the same again. How can this moment be shown? How can this frozen time—lasting hours, days, weeks, months—be evoked?

There are two elements, completely intertwined, inseparable, yet entirely antagonistic: the harshness of the moment, of that frozen time of announcement, waiting, terror, and death. It is the harshness of stone, a harshness that only stone can express. And at the same time, there is the fluidity of that moment: vast movements, wandering and fleeing, and returns as well. It is the flight of the closest victims who were able to escape; the wandering of the first circle of witnesses, of all Parisians heading home that evening of November 13, 2015. It is the drifting through Paris of families waiting and searching for news of loved ones who were at the shooting sites. It is the crossing of Paris by rescue workers, police officers, and soldiers; the evacuation of the wounded and of bodies to hospitals and to the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

Client (Project Owner): City of Paris
Project Management / Design Team: Wagon Landscaping
Stone Contractors: SOCAL, Bretagne Granits
Material: Lanhélin Granite

EXTENSION DU GROUPE SCOLAIRE IGOR MITORAJ – Cornillon-Confoux (13)

A unique feature of this project is that the connection between the new section (kindergarten extension) and the renovated elementary school section spans a pedestrian alleyway, the Chemin des Ecoliers, which links the main street to the upper part of the village. The new school is located along the path, which has been carefully redesigned to match the slope of the alleyway, thereby reclassifying it as a continuous and accessible space.

A more generous forecourt has been designed to accommodate the entrance porch to the new nursery school and a secondary entrance to the renovated elementary school.
Continuing on from the preserved cobbled path, a public staircase/steps extends into the new hall, marking a contemplative pause in this transitional sequence while integrating the new facility into the village.

The constraints, the small size of the plot, the steep slopes, and the irregular adjoining buildings all become levers for the project. The school does not impose itself but fits into the existing environment: a sunken car park, classrooms and a protected kindergarten playground at the center, an educational terrace with a belvedere and a footbridge connecting it to the existing school.

Client: Cornillon-Confoux Town Hall
Project management: Averous & Simay Architecture
Stone contractors: Carrières de Provence, Poggia Provence
Material: Vers-Pont-du-Gard stone

SAINT RAPHAEL’S HEALTH & WELLBEING CENTRE – Mayfield School (East Sussex – UK)

Mayfield is a 19th-century Catholic girls’ school whose heart is a restored medieval palace. The spirit of the school is still inspired by the social values that shaped the Catholic and Gothic revivals, as well as their link to the Romantic movement. Adam Richards Architects were commissioned to create a masterplan to help the school thrive in the 21st century, and the St Raphael Health and Wellbeing Centre is the first completed element of it.

The building combines a palette of natural materials—stone and timber—in an innovative, sustainable, and poetic way, delivering a low-carbon design along with durability and longevity. The project involved constructing a new healthcare building to replace the existing infirmary, giving equal attention to physical and mental wellbeing. The health and wellbeing centre provides students with a welcoming, calm, and discreet environment to support them throughout school life.

The new single-storey facility includes two consultation rooms, a treatment room, an isolation room, and a four-bed dormitory. A generous reception area and a central kitchen provide informal classroom spaces for health and wellbeing lessons. The building draws on domestic typologies to create warm, inviting spaces. The centre offers a safe and welcoming environment that is hygienic yet not clinical or cold. St Raphael has a dynamic sculptural form inspired by the site and its history. Highly visible in the landscape, the building subtly reorganises the spaces around it: to the south, a new courtyard is created, and a long glazed corridor runs alongside it, forming a cloister-like circulation axis on the building’s southern side. To the north, a long wall evoking a Vauban fortification rises to visually “gather” the existing school buildings on the hillside (like a medieval painting). It creates a gateway to the school, clearly defining the boundary with the surrounding landscape. At the heart of the building sits a long table in the calm of the shared kitchen; this space opens onto the cloister passage and looks out onto a “secret garden”. This peaceful green space is the focal point of all the care rooms, giving everyone access to light and air without compromising privacy.

Designed as a healthy building, it is constructed from natural, non-hazardous materials, including cross-laminated timber, stone bricks, and lime mortar. The CLT structure is left exposed inside, revealing the grain of the wood and clearly expressing the building’s tectonic language while creating a warm, tactile interior.

The façades of the Health and Wellbeing Centre are built in limestone, a new material whose brick dimensions harmonise with those of the listed gatehouse and the Old Palace. Polycor stone bricks have proven to have an 86% lower carbon footprint than traditional fired clay bricks and are fully reusable and recyclable. This is believed to be the first completed building to use stone bricks. The Health and Wellbeing Centre achieves high thermal performance levels while using air-source heat pumps and mechanical ventilation heat-recovery systems.

Client (Project Owner): Mayfield School
Project Management / Design Team: Adam Richards Architects
Stone Contractor: Polycor
Material: Massangis stone

SPONTINI IMMEUBLE DE LOGEMENTS ET DE BUREAUX – PARIS 16e 

The project is located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, at the corner of Rue Spontini and Rue Thiers, in a homogeneous post-Haussmannian neighborhood. The plot, which was created as part of a historic transformation linked to the opening of Rue Thiers in the early 20th century, has an atypical shape and originally featured a small garden at the corner of the two streets. The new building is being constructed on the site of this garden.

The approach adopted favors sobriety and dialogue with the existing buildings. At the corner of the streets, the project does not fully exploit the maximum envelope authorized by the local urban planning regulations in order to preserve the legibility of the gable of the existing building on the plot, which dates back to the mid-19th century.

In this context, the use of solid stone seemed obvious. The facades bend and curve to complement the urban perspectives characteristic of a corner plot, while at the same time extending the horizontal layout of the neighboring buildings, which are at different heights between Rue Spontini and Rue Thiers, which rises towards Avenue Victor Hugo. 
Greenery is a strong feature: nearly 100 m² of planted roofs and terraces on the new building extend the Parisian green network, promote biodiversity, and contribute to rainwater management.

Client: SIMVEST
Project management: SO/AP
Stone contractor: Polycor France
Materials: Saint-Maximin stone, Euville stone
 

LA GARE AUX LOISIRS DE CALVISSON – Calvisson (30)

A local material
Neither from yesterday nor from tomorrow, stone is a timeless material—stable, rot-proof, and naturally non-combustible. Reusable and energy-efficient from extraction through installation, it is long-lasting and offers strong thermal inertia. In the Gard region, stone is ever-present and reflects the area’s heritage and rich local architecture.

Blending in and standing out
Inspired by the region’s strong local heritage and in continuity with the former railway station, the extension—built in solid stone from the local quarries of Vers-Pont-du-Gard—creates a powerful landmark from the public space and gives the project a contemporary and elegant character.

Building and passing on
Designing a building for children also has a didactic purpose. The building has an educational strength, an essential complement to teaching methods. The centre becomes a welcoming environment that greatly contributes to a child’s development, an opportunity to raise awareness among the youngest about the environment (built and unbuilt) and the issues related to its construction and different uses. The constructive and volumetric simplicity of solid stone becomes a teaching tool: materials are tangible and their origin is known. Echoing children’s games, the school is assembled like a “Lego” set, so its composition is quickly understood by the youngest pupils.

Client (Project Owner): Communauté de communes du pays de Sommières
Project Management / Design Team: Tessier Portal Architectes
Stone Contractors: Chazelle, Les Arts de Pierre
Material: Vers-Pont-du-Gard stone

JARDIN D’EVE – Fontvieille (13)

It is a small, temporary, demountable structure, modest in scale, without pretension or a specific program. Serving both as a welcoming space and a presentation area for the activity of the dimension-stone quarries, it complements two existing buildings used as offices for several decades. The austerity of their architecture might suggest that, for one of them, the rigor of architect Fernand Pouillon was applied at the time when he drew from the depths of the ground the material needed for his vast housing programs.

As with him, it was necessary to stack building blocks to demonstrate constructive feasibility; yet beyond this trivial task, the work of the architect—the creator—is to try to give it meaning. But how can a thought be inscribed in the duration of an ephemeral building? Or how can time be embedded in something fleeting, since this construction can be dismantled?

But do indestructible buildings exist? No, because all buildings, like our lives, are destined to die. And yet architecture can outlast human time through the ideas of architects. Each spatial experience feeds our senses and extends into thought. The light of cathedrals, the weight of Romanesque architecture, the scents of monastic gardens guide the creator toward new places shaped within new circumstances.

Client (Project Owner): Carrières de Provence
Project Management / Design Team: Atelier Architecture Perraudin
Stone Contractors: Carrières de Provence, SARL Tonino
Material: Fontvieille stone