Pantin, in the midst of change, is changing its La Seigneurie district by providing the city with a sports hall which it sorely lacked, and this Building becomes the revealer of the challenges of current climate architecture.
Since its anticipated political inauguration on February 14, and its presentation at the head of the gondola of the first major Workshop of the 15th International Wood Construction Forumon February 25, as emblematic achievement of Greater Paris during the municipal mandate of 2020, the Hall continued to be talked about, with a large mention illustrated by Isabelle Regnier in The Worldwhile this sports equipment had the distinct honor of appearing in the selection of ten of the Grand Prix de l’Architecture 10+1 from the Revue d’Ayet very strongly focused this year on renovation.
RamDam finally makes some noise
This smooth building has many facets which mean that its understanding only emerges late. The city of Pantin is home to Ekopolis, and theRamDam agency is part of the small group determining the development of BDF label and putting its lasting coherence into practice.
At the time, theagency founded by Olivier Misischi and Franck Dibon survive. Olivier second Fabienne Bulle in La Fabrique, an emanation of the ESA which is intended as a passage towards practice, and designed the totems of the International Bois Construction Forum for several years, starting in 2018. At that time, Franck Dibon brought to fruition a ten-year project for RamDam, which relates to the equipment of his father’s sawmill. An award-winning project National Wood Construction Prize to the point of making the cover of the precious catalog which accompanied the prices.
In Paris, Olivier Misischi manages for RamDam to deliver six social housing units near Place Clichy which correspond to Elogie Siemp’s commitment in the PACTE after the Philippon-Kalt tower in the new Bourget-Taro Porte d’Italie district, a promise of the Francîbois Charter of 2016.
A competition without pedigree
RamDam rows. But in Pantin, we accept that the agency so committed to the BDF adventure will compete for the market which must finally complete the centenary project of the La Seigneurie stadiumat the foot of the Romainville hill. A place, by the way, full of history, with the Madness awaiting renovationthe outdoor school which shows that we are at the same point today as more than 100 years ago, the Honegger tower which emerges from a neighborhood entirely of its own making, and which seems admirably maintained. There La Seigneurie old people’s homedesigned for day care at the time of the factory of the same name, and which became a nursing home with a pretty covered wooden walkway. And we could continue the list. And the RamDam project will reveal all this.
BDF applied to oneself
RamDam is, in the middle of Covid, in competition with, excuse me, Encore Heureux and Raum. The competition is anonymous. Olivier Misischi, in fact, applies for RamDam what he promoted and learned within the framework of the BDF Label, moreover, the competition requires single-team BDF support, RamDam has this status internally, the other two major competitors do not. Instead of waiting for comments from the committees, the RamDam project so to speak precedes them. Why sacrifice the row of trees to the south, really? Well, the program provides for it, what do you want? Why rise so high in this rare uneven green landscape? Why not dig? But be careful, the city wants the Gold label, which corresponds to E4C2. No one then delivered the slightest E4C2 sports hall in France, the maximum of the E+C- calculation and in addition without the dynamic carbon of the RE2020. The first school arrives with Bruges and Compagnie Architecture, now joined by several other projects. The city wants BDF Gold, therefore in principle E4C2 but respecting the “sustainable coherence” of BDF. It is not a question of rushing into silos to achieve performance, which requires consideration in relation to use.
So, in the end, the RamDam project selected is not there, it reaches E3C2, missing E4 by very little. It’s anecdotal, in the sense that C2 is in itself heroic. For E4 it would be necessary to sacrifice green space on the roof, plants most of which perished this summer due to untimely disconnection of the drip line and which will be replanted… In the countryside, no drip line…
Bioclimatic daring
But let’s go back. THE RamDam project wins while the agency cannot bring out the entire arsenal of presentation methods, compensating for it with a few models which ultimately were a strong point for understanding the project. What matters is this idea of preserving trees elsewhere that have been heavily pruned and visibly suffering from the long French drought, whether they are conifers on the street side or maples and black locust. If we shift the location considerably enough towards the bottom of the slope, we must lick the synthetic track of the football field with all the protection issues against balls. And there, a little stroke of genius, the passage towards the sports halls at the back of the hall, and towards the magnificent stadium with a set back metal stand, will be via a terrace facing north which becomes a sort of tier where, as RamDam indicates, a sort of Belvedere over the city. The handball and basketball hall needs to be installed by digging, in order to reduce the height of the general installation and compensate for its shift towards the North. And there, the second big idea, the stands are placed on the north side so as to only provide an access corridor with a width of just over 2 m, positioned exactly at the height of the outdoor sports field. Continuity is also emphasized elsewhere at this level of the hall, with the impression that the hall continues outside.
Oukase and essences
This impression is reinforced by very large bay windows which make this hall architectural from the inside out. The facade is smooth, simply playing with openings and solids, with flush windows which act as a mirror and reflect the surrounding landscape. The deflector imposed by the FOB runs just above the bays is the last straw, its line is barely noticeable and its positioning is unusual but operational. Here we arrive at the big technical part of the operation, the fire protection of a structure intended largely in wood. RamDam does not chooseas we are used to, a hall whose ceiling is streaked with BLC beams. His choice is to position two concrete bracing blocks on either side, on which rest:
– North side: a large 42m beam on which two others of 24m rest;
– South side: a series of posts every 4 m taking up the earth thrusts to transmit them to the R+1 wooden floor playing the role of diaphragm and transferring the forces into the foundations via the concrete slots of the two staircase cores located on either side of the sports platform.
The wooden structure had to remain visible according to the spirit of visualization of the structure. But then we arrive at the phase of the doctrine of the firefighters of the Paris police headquarters. The project provides a firefighter’s access on the street side which means that the last level is less than 8 m away, therefore accessible by ladder, but the firefighters read the regulations by asking for a height of less than 8 m from the main access – and not from the firefighter’s access as specified in said doctrine. The project must be completely revised.
The BLC beams of the hall will be enclosed; inside, the structural wood is no longer visible. No matter, the entire large hall is clad in wooden battens and wherever possible, in the frames and even in the signage, wood reappears even if it means confronting the species, revealing joints between battens of different colors which usually require painting. The hall, with its chestnut cladding, Breton Rahuel’s first major Ile-de-France operation, combines plywood and spruce BLC inside, creating a light well in the upstairs rooms, beech and softwood joinery, etc.
A carbon team that thrives
Additional fire protection costs 19 kg of CO2 per m2RamDam compensates for it down to the millimeter, closely studying the concrete according to the demands, using solid brick reused in the basement. Despite three large metal beams and the digging, the concrete bracing cores and the additional fire protection, it holds and the complete team, in particular ECSB, ACDF for the framework in the envelope, Olry for the curtain wall, GCC for the other lots, signs something which will be extensively dissected in the future, since we can no longer go back and we are entering, populism or not, into a carbon economy.
Sweating
The inauguration on February 14, Valentine’s Day, resulted in a declaration of love for the city with the presence of a thousand people, a little more than the hall can accommodate. Then, the season was sluggish but now, the theaters are very busy. In summer, the manual ventilation device, deliberately chosen, worked. Air fans, perfect bioclimatic exposure, a vast manual ventilation system, suitable materials. Except that the heatwaves reach such heights that we no longer want to do sports.
RamDam agitator
To summarize, RamDam was at the forefront of Ekopolis’ BDF certification and was able to seize its opportunity by applying the precepts of sustainable consistency. RamDam accepted the firefighters’ interpretations and had to recast the project by integrating the firefighters’ doctrine without sacrificing C2, the agency therefore also placing itself, not only on the front line of the doctrine era, but also in the search for answers without sacrificing carbon, nor the desire to display wood. Meanwhile, in the Mellinet district, RamDam is releasing R+5 wooden housing with Palast with facades in prefabricated hemp concrete (Wall Up Préfa), with wide overhangs which are becoming a bit of an icon of our time. Finally, in Beaucouzé, the agency is completing an eco-district in which it was one of the first players, with peri-urban and anti-heat wave housing just as programmatic as the rest.
Against panic climate action
Olivier Misischi is chomping at the bit. There would be so much to do! Competitions have dried up and emergency climate measures are reduced to operations of air mixers, shelter air conditioning and BSO entrusted to BEs, just like the support of the BDF approach, which increasingly escapes architects because it is not remunerated. France has, with agencies like RamDama sort of European excellence for what matters: sustainable consistency, consideration of fire issues without sacrificing high carbon performance, massive use of biogeosourced materials. The market is on the cover, the Prizes fall, but not necessarily in awareness of all the issues that this project reveals, and in a context of societal denial which generates an exacerbated return to school.
Jonas Tophoven / © Jonas Tophoven
