Olympic Games-2024: the aquatic center, a small wooden cocoon facing the monumental Stade de France

Facing the monumental Stade de France, "with its perfect oval, in great stability which ultimately represents an institutional public building", the architects Laure Mériaud and Cécilia Gross imagined "a geometric shape that moves".

“It’s sport, it’s for Seine-Saint-Denis, a super young territory where there is everything to do,” argues Laure Mériaud, in front of the building, not yet baptized and simply named by its acronym CAO, stuck between the A1 and A86 motorways.

The undulation of its roof recalls the movement of a wave, an image reinforced by the reflections of light on the nearly 5.000 square meters of photovoltaic panels installed there. Except that this dynamic form owes more to engineering than to poetry.

“What costs the most money and energy in a swimming pool is actually heating the air,” points out Laure Mériaud.

Wood wave

On the highway side, the curves of the roof therefore "marry as much as possible the volume we need to take the plunge", describes the architect, when the other end of the building rises much lower, to better integrate into the future Plaine Saulnier district, mixing offices and homes.

Architects and engineers worked on the same computer tool, comparing design choices with technical, energy and financial constraints.

“Thanks to the concave roof, and thanks to the photovoltaic panels there, we save energy,” greets Patrick Ollier, president of the Métropole du Grand Paris, owner of the CAO.

From the wooded slats that surround the exterior of the building to the majestic vault suspended above the 70-meter pool, wood is the king material used to design the aquatic center.

Before the athletes try to glean medals there, a first global technical feat was surpassed at the CAO: the hundred beams which constitute its framework extend over an exceptional length of 90 meters.

“What interested us in wood is that we don’t need to hide it: the structure makes the architecture and so we don’t yet add additional materials,” smiles Laure Mériaud under this warm assemblage .

This same concern for construction with a low carbon footprint led the architects to choose seats entirely made from recycled plastic.

This is Saint-Denis

Bathing the large nautical hall in natural light, the large glass facades of the building will however be obscured during the Olympic Games, from July 26 to August 11, to meet the technical constraints of television broadcasts of the events.

“This swimming pool, when we enter it, we see the Stade de France, we know that we are in Saint-Denis” likes to point out Laure Mériaud for whom the integration of the building into the neighborhood is essential.

Once the Olympic flame has been extinguished, it will take almost a year to finalize the complex which, in addition to the learning pool and the 500 square meter aquatic space, will include a climbing room, three sports fields (football five, 3x3 basketball and padel tennis) and even a restaurant.

With an opening to the public planned for early June 2025, architects and operators wanted “a real public place and not, as is often the case, in sports centers, a black box, a small door and a direct turnstile with the ticket,” reports Laure Mériaud.

Obviously proud of the building that she co-designed with her Dutch colleague Cécilia Gross, the French architect is impatient to see the public take ownership of the place, through its practices and through words.

“It’s going to be great to see what people call it because it’s often the success of buildings when we give them a little name,” she laughs, while keeping the nickname she has a secret. chosen for this wooden cocoon, around which 450 trees will be planted.