Space Guy Môquet Cultural Center / Oeco architectes

Text description provided by the architects. Espace Guy Môquet is a mixed equipment gathering a leisure centre, a dance hall and collective accommodation. The project’s ambition is to attract young people in this new space made for them. The project, located at the entrance of the city, looks massive and attractive thanks to its shape and materials. The compactness and the implantation of the volume provide large outdoor spaces. The project is a pivot of several geometries, with different concrete ‘s faces, a winded building designed to go through. Its scale is reduced thanks to the embedding of the volume in the ground and its indoor programmatic’s imbrication visible from its central atrium. Half-levels connect the spaces and create generous and continuous volumes.


An external staircase and terraces give independent access to all the higher levels, offering users freedom of use. Deployed on the three lower semi-levels, the Youth Space is defined as an open space, which can be divided as needed. It is organised around an atrium, the heart of the equipment, on which open all the spaces. The dance hall is connected to the Youth Space by the atrium but is also accessible via the staircase and the terrace. The Collective Accommodation is located at the upper and last level and benefits from the roof terrace with the view of the surrounding landscape and the sunset.

The facades of the building are built with only one single material, concrete. The sophistication of the material is provided by a double treatment, according to the faces of the project: the digs are made of smooth concrete, and the facade in the foreground is made of concrete moulded in a vertical matrix. The treatment of the facades is adapted to each orientation. Some facades are thus permeable and possibly protected by sun breezes or overhangs, and others are more opaque, depending on the orientations and winds. The project forms a homogeneous whole, thanks to the treatment of the surface in moulded concrete following the rhythm of vertical sun breakers.