Sports Hall, "Temps des Cerises" Park | Explorations Architecture

As an entrance to the Park “Temps des Cerises”, the sports hall can easily be identified from a distance thanks to its cover. His situation, at the corner of “Rue Campra” and “Avenue des Fruitiers”, creates a strong link with the entire neighborhood, up to “Acrobates” Park.
At once simple and iconic, its structure totally open in one side and strongly rhythmic in the other side, takes visitors into the heart of the park by a wide building frame. It is composed of very close timber porticos covered with transparent polycarbonate. These porticos appear as a clear and universal sign reminding the dense succession of Torii guiding visitors to the heart of sanctuaries that can be encountered into some Japanese temples.
Beyond its entrance function, the privileged location of this structure into the city gives a strategic place to sport activities. By providing a protection of sports areas and terraces from the elements, as well as filtering the light, this structure offers a pleasant setting for all the sportive activities that go on there.
This makes symbolically reference to trellises and pergolas, these light, articulated and resistant structures that have always been used for the garden designs. These structures, with or without vegetation presence, constitute welcoming architectures that live in harmony with nature. The cover made of transparent polycarbonate, almost invisible, constitutes a large diagonal inclined plane that offers a natural drainage of the rainwater down to the landscape valley constituting the backbone of the park.
Our choice has been to design this structure with noble materials in order to ensure to this equipment its public status and its will to pertain to a conscious and sustainable approach of architecture.