Balsaneo Aquatic Center / Studio Mikou
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Text description provided by the architects. The Balsaneo nautical and sports center is the fruit of the will of a young visionary mayor from central France who wishes to give his city a reputation with innovative and ambitious equipment dedicated to the pleasures of water in all its forms. The building offers 2000 m2 of aquatic space with swimming pools for competition training, spectator stands for 500 people, relaxation and well-being pools, a 50m outdoor swimming pool, a balneotherapy area with hammams, saunas and rooms. massage, a sports center with spaces dedicated to sports and a multipurpose room that can serve as a music room or a wedding room, 2 cafeterias, outdoor solariums planted and a solarium on the roof.
Structurally, the building is constructed as a bridge as it spans the 12m wide Boulevard de la Valla which passes below at ground level. The project is set up on level 1 by creating a “Plano Nobile”, an entrance plaza on the upper part, taking advantage of the slope of the land to position itself on the upper part of the site and offer panoramic views of the landscape. surrounding. The BALSANEO aquatic center is located on a former industrial site – the site of the Balsan sheet factories dating from the 18th century – today transformed into a campus dedicated to new technologies and sports. It will welcome a varied audience including students from the campus.
The historic site of Balsan. The first buildings were constructed in 1752, and due to their innovative character, they reinforced a powerful local textile tradition that continues to this day. From 1856, the name Balsan is associated with the factory and is synonymous with innovation and ambition. The site includes 60,000 square meters of workshops and warehouses and includes administrative buildings, a gas production plant, water towers, a workers’ city with 100 housing units, a dispensary and schools. The Balsan district is today an eco-district of the town, with remarkable restored historic monuments and a special relationship to the landscape on the edge of the Indre valley. The Balsaneo aquatic center in Châteauroux is part of this unique site and is inspired by the industrial and avant-garde spirit of the time.
The concept. The development proposal of Salwa and Selma Mikou consisted of placing the aquatic center in a central position in the perspective of the boulevard de la Valla and raising the entrance level of the square to let the boulevard pass and create extraordinary views from the room. pool table on the large landscape and to maintain the privacy and distance of the outdoor solariums from the street level below. The project forms an elliptical Belvedere building on the meadows of the Indre and on the racetrack and occasionally crosses the Boulevard de la Valla while keeping vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists under the traffic along this axis connecting the city to nature. . The decision to raise the main level of the aquatic center makes it possible to place the technical equipment on the ground floor with direct access to the street without having to dig a basement level. On the ground floor, on Boulevard de la Valla, the building has a homogeneous base made up of prefabricated concrete walls that follow the slope of the land. This base ensures the continuity of materiality with the surrounding buildings.
The architectural concept. From the raised square, the building is revealed as an ascending arabesque of volumes dressed in thin metal slats which surround the billiard room and constitute its service areas. The fully glazed entrance is distinguished by a double height reception hall which projects onto the volume of the billiard room. The aim of the project was to reveal the structure of the building in all its forms, leaving visible the crossing metal beams, which are supported by large white concrete walls. The architectural concrete constitutes the main interior material of the building with the covering of the tiles and the large glazed elements which project towards the large landscape.
The billiard room is a spatial continuum allowing privileged visual relations on the Indre valley and transparency between all the pools, the leisure areas and the solarium. The choice of large glazed elements edge to edge without joinery allows a unified vision of the landscape without cutting it up. The overhead light from the large windows on the roof associated with the large windows open to the landscape and the sky offers a very special spatial and luminous atmosphere and allows intense changes in light during the day. The large zenith openings, rounded like glass rugs, allow large openings to the sky.
The nautical and sports center is a public training and well-being building; it welcomes everyone: athletes, schools, and families who take advantage of the indoor and outdoor swimming pools and the landscaped outdoor solariums treated in level and green dunes oriented towards the racecourse and the landscape. The building is spread over 3 levels: the lower ground floor accommodates the multipurpose room designed as a soundproofed music room with a catering area, weight training areas, association areas and technical rooms.
The upper ground floor is the main level of the billiard room with reception and entrance for the public, individual and collective changing rooms, showers and the billiard room. The latter is articulated between a sports billiard room with 2 Olympic pools, one 25 m by 25 m and the other 25 m by 12.5 m for sports training, and a fun billiard room with well-being pools. A 50m outdoor pool with 5 heated water lines and access to an outdoor Nordic pool completes the pool offer. A balneotherapy center with water jet basin, massage showers, hot marble area, sauna and hammam is connected to the billiard room and opens onto the outdoor solarium.
