Transition to the mountain station
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
How to begin its transition to the mountain resort, offering a more sensitive image, where the architecture would live during the four seasons? The music comes here to reactivate the city. The question of the architectural and constructive footprint, the impact of a new building in a privileged site already anthropized, will thus lead to a conception embedded within the existing one, where the question of its imprint is reflected, constructive imprint on the ground but also visual in a landcape.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Today, we face the risk of global warming, affecting the entire globe, but most notably the areas of medium mountains. Ski resorts, operating on white gold, are affected by the lack of snow, leading to increasingly heavy and energy-consuming investments. All of them questioning a possible transition to survive. Today, Flaine is like the ski resort, turned towards a single functionality, the mountain being seen as consumable, where the architecture lives mainly only on two seasons. How to begin its transition to the mountain resort, offering a more sensitive image, seen as appreciable, where the architecture would live during the four seasons? To get out of a mono-functionality and a development exclusively focused on sports, the project will be to establish a conservatory in the station. This will reinforce the already existing use within the station, which already has an international Academy of music, mainly taking place in the auditorium, but without a real building dedicated to learning the musical practices already studied. The music comes here to reactivate the city. Within the research of the design and implementation, the notion of control has been paramount. The question of the architectural and constructive footprint, the impact of a new building in a privileged site already anthropized, will thus lead to a conception embedded within the existing heritage by rehabilitating it, avoiding urban sprawl. A project which suggest to think of an architecture integrated into an existing one, where the question of its imprint is reflected, constructive imprint on the ground but also visual in a landscape already altered by men. An architecture of heritage transition, of complement and bond, which aims to be humble, through the body, to physical discovery by the slope of a landscape to live and respect. A project that composes with an architecture already present and a privileged environment to be taken into account in a real environmental risk.
Key objectives for sustainability
- To build with the existant, by rehabiliting a patrimonial building.
- To use sustainable and local materials in the construction.
- Using the sun, the wind, and the water, for the building to become more passive.
- Make the skiresort station becoming a city more distractive during all the year, with the education of music.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
- Make a transition of the architecture. An existing building with new spaces, as a public floor in connection with a new forecourt, where all the inhabitants, tourists, can enjoyed listening to musicians playing in the outdoor.
- Public and private spaces in connection in the project of the conservatory. Upstairs, a restaurant with a view on the mountains, a bar, exhibitions, spaces for listening to the music, a terrace, a patio... Downstairs, all the classrooms, library.
- Simplicity in the use of materials, as natural woods, warm, raw.
- The central patio gives the possibility to reconnect with the exterior and the nature that was inexistant in the building. Local trees are planted, and people can see the evolution of the seasons from all the rooms and spaces. The water falls in the patio, the leaves and the snow too. The building is not closed on itself anymore, but open on the environment of the mountain, the air, the smells and the biodiversity. People makes the experience of an open space where they can enjoy the mountains, the nature, and the music in the conservatory.
- It's a transition in the ski resort station with a new program, but also a transition of the existing heritage.
- It's the experience of the music in a beautiful and peaceful environment.
"La note" completes the experience. It adapts to its environment, to the altitude, opening and closing according to the season, according to the weather, in the concern of its hold on the ground. A small scale generous in the desire to accommodate an annex to the conservatory, practice of experimental music, but also refuge for hikers and observatory for environmental educational activities on the flora and fauna developed by the resort.
Key objectives for inclusion
- Building in the existant allows to avoid earthworks. In a location where the slope and the topography is very important, and where new foundations will be very expensive.
- The use of the materials is thoughtful. They have to be locals and abundant.
- The solar panels on the roof, the patio that allows natural lighting, natural ventilation, and the water recovery : less energy creatin. A building more efficient and independant than before. And so, economies in the future.
- "La note", a micro-architecture with no need to have a lot of materials, a simply construction, where the materials can be bring step by step, during hiking. Trying not using motor vehicles.
Innovative character
- I think my concept/idea can be innovative. It's in a real environmental risk, where architects can find an answer of the problem. Nowadays, we are several people who wants to change things which do not match with environmental crisis and social needs.
- My idea is innovative by the program, because in France, it will be the first ski resort station with an conservatory, in connection with the music academy already present. We have to rely on the strong points of a site to make them emerge.
- Architecture and culture offer the opportunity to bring together in a privileged place source of inspiration for musicians and many of us.
