Our project for extending a multipurpose sports-events centre for youth included additional classrooms, an annex and reception facilities. These additions were integrated into two recently acquired 17th century buildings – a farm building and a Norman manor – as well as a concrete bunker from the 1950’s.
Our proposal for this important mixed-use development project in the historic centre of Angers in France’s Loire valley combines range of new functions — retail, housing, hotel, shopping center — into the existing urban fabric.
Working with the city’s preservation department we were able to maintain the striking architectural qualities of this site which comprises a 1930’s post office and several historic bank buildings, as well as a cinema built in the 1920’s. We linked the renovation projects together by covering rue Franklin Roosevelt (120m x 15m) with a state-of-the-art engineered arcade inspired by 19th and 20th century European shopping arcades.
Pedestrian bridges connect the various of levels and functions of this unusual inner-city mixed-use urban preservation and development project.
The proposal for a mixed use development project close to the La Défense area near Paris includes offices, apartments and retail functions.
The project for “millennium” pedestrian bridges was designed to reinforce the connections between historic city centres and urban renewal zones in Dublin and Cork. Our project for Dublin received 2nd Prize.
One of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Tour de France decided to redesign all of its infrastructure. In this ambitious undertaking, we worked to devise the installation that, every day on television screens all over the world, popularize the Tour and make it one of the greatest shows on earth.
The Tour de France, one of the biggest and most popular sporting events in the world, is rebranding the totality its infrastructure. As part of this ambitious undertaking, we designed the installations that are seen every day of the Tour on television screens all over the world.
Since 1996, Mellett Architects has been engaged by Amaury Sports Organization to renovate all the Tour de France installations. Every year, a new creation has been added to this futurist family of structures and objects: first the Protocol Podium, then the finishing line, the press tribune, the starting line, the launching pad for time trials, and most recently the red flame and the identification signage on the route.
Each of these elements has been studied for mobility, extensibility, transportability and speed of setup and installation. A European team has pooled their skills to attain a result that is both efficient and aesthetic. The team that includes Desgrippes Gobe Associates, British designer Martin Francis, RFR agency, German pneumatic engineer Udo Rutsche, a Dutch company and a French car-body designer. Probably our best example in this series is the Pierre Perrève time trials ramp, named after our former colleague who participated in the project. A piece of equipment whose design and ergonomics are perfectly in line with the new image of the Tour : avant-garde, high-tech and esthetically compelling.
We won a public competition to construct the first phase of new educational facilities — a nursery school, day care facilities and a canteen — for the village of Flins-sur-Seine, 35 kilometres west of Paris.
This project comprises 1600 m² of nursery school and day-care center accommodation. It was designed in 2006 / 2008 and reached practical completion in December 2008.
The site was occupied by a series of open-air tennis courts and a small fire station. Its form was narrow and deep and accessible from both ends. It is situated within 500 meters of a very busy highway that connects Paris with Normandy.
We planned the main circulation connecting the two staircases away from the courtyard, running parallel to the “blank wall” that protects the school environment from the motorway noise.
The scale and height of the project was determined by the existing urban context in terms of the neighboring houses and the rural materials in what is essentially a farming community.
The restaurant can cater for up to 230 students. The nursery school comprises five classrooms and necessary ancillary functions, services etc. The day-care center is an autonomous service and is independently accessible. The courtyard houses various play structures and can be supervised from all points within the school, including the external balcony at first floor level. The external fire stairs that lead into the courtyard are hidden behind wooden planks of varying height which recall the wooden barn structures of the village.