Media Library St Paul / Peripheriques Architects

Architects: Peripheriques Architects
Location: Aquarium De La Réunion, 97434 Saint-Paul-en-Cornillon, France
Design Team: Emmanuelle Marin, David Trottin, Anne-Françoise Jumeau
Area: 4567.0 sqm
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Luc Boegly

Project Manager: Juliette Bonnamy - With : Charlotte Lefebvre, Alfredo Luvison, Claire Oiry, Emily Murphy, Timothée Kazmierczak, Pierre Tignon, Karine Bergevin, Camille Isaac-Dognin, Charline Lalanne, Guillaume Guilbert
Project Management: SEDRE for Saint-Paul city
Bet Tce Eco Hqe Vrd: Egis Océan Indien
Acoustic Research Department: Peutz & Associés
Landscape Designer: Zone Up
Artist: Michel Batory
3 D Pictures: L’autre Image

From the architect. The new media library structures “the gateway” of Saint-Paul city. Its location choice comes as an urban answer to the need of a strong identity in the landscape scale. This building has to become a cultural landmark, through information and training, as well as a visual one through its architecture.

Located between sea and mountain, the building shape is a 34m side cube. The idea of an urban landmark is enhanced by a strong aesthetic vocabulary of the volume related to the ”book” media: façades are structured by a stack of wavy lines reminiscent of the book pages pattern. Those “pages” are solar shading systems vibrating around the construction. It generates a warm filtered light, maintaining an optimum thermal comfort. This is reinforced by façades made of louvres window blades which creates openings to naturally ventilate the building.

In this book, some pages opens like eyes to create chapters, that structures the building : The lobby of the media center, the garden, and the several terraces spread over the top levels molds some lookouts on the Indian Ocean landscape. As book illustrations, the ceilings of the levels reveals some pictures by Michal Batory about medias and Reunion’s heritage.

On the floor, some planted islets designed like organic shapes are surrounded by benches, that invites to take a break. The garden places the media center into a pleasant journey in the district.