Hacine Cherifi Sports Center: wooden gyms serving schools and the neighborhood

Light tones have been used to create a calm, peaceful atmosphere to ensure that the structures remain discreet. The floor is beige, the panels are in light wood, and the positioning of the lights and radiators are integrated into a carefully designed layout.

The only color is the red of the gym equipment, creating a sharp contrast with the overall monochromatic tone.

The building houses two gyms and support services on a total area of 2,500 square meters with internal ceiling heights of 9 and 12 meters.

True to the studio's values, TectoniquesArchitectes uses a mixed wood/concrete structure without pretension or artifice, the wooden components are largely prefabricated.

HacineCherifi is a boxer from the city that made history in 1998 at the Astroballe when he became the first French middleweight world champion.

The structure includes a gymnastics hall (880 m2), a multipurpose sports hall (1.100 sqm) and the necessary spaces to accommodate the general public and sportsmen and women.

The volumes are organized in a very simple way. The two rooms are set at right angles around a block that houses all the support services. The terraces offer seating for up to 400 spectators, which overlooks the multi-purpose sports hall and opens at the back to the entrance area and the cafeteria, which are clearly visible from the outdoor public spaces. The fully glazed facade facing the street, offers glimpses of activities inside the facility without disturbing the sporting or training events taking place nearby

As in other architecture projects, to limit the impact of the structure on the surrounding urban environment, the architects took advantage of the height difference between the street and the interior of the plot by integrating part of the building into the slope. This also allowed them to create access to the top of the building and reduce the building's height on the street by 6 meters. The dimensions correspond to the scale of the nearby school and the residential fabric of the neighborhood.

The building has a very simple shape and the facades are plain, while the style of the schools is fluid and landscaped and the gymnasium has a sober style. It occupies the north corner of the project at the intersection of two of Rilleux's main streets. The main facade faces east on rue Salignat with a large glass facade and a cantilevered volume, while at the back, to the west, the building is intentionally quiet, like the residential floor under construction. To the south, it overlooks the schools, located on the opposite side of a pedestrian alley that provides access to the schools.

As in all projects by the architectural design firm Tectoniques Architectes, the construction system is both understandable and visible. The concrete walls supporting the height of the building's underground section have been left visible from the inside. Above these walls, the structures are all made of wood. The main structure is formed by a series of portal frames. These are made of laminated wood, with columns and beams spanning 34 meters, placed on a footprint of 5.8 square meters.

For the purpose of transportation, the beams were constructed in two parts, stored and bolted together on site with metal eyelets.

The 2000 square meters of components that make up the external cladding are prefabricated, assembled with an external wall insulation system around the structure. From the outside, the system is composed of three-layer spruce panels above the slats, OSB panels that make up the base of the boxes, the 36 cm deep box frame filled with straw, a 40 mm insulating wood fiber panel, the rain barrier, and the cladding consisting of three layers of spruce boards on which wood tiles, also made from locally sourced spruce, are fixed.

The beams are alternately placed in the construction of the roof above and below the height of the columns. This system creates large windows, horizontal bands that face north and manage the height of the beams. This provides ample ambient lighting.