{"id":66761,"date":"2026-08-18T18:23:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/66761\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:23:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:23:29","slug":"a-civic-canopy-in-rural-france-by-onze04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/66761\/","title":{"rendered":"A Civic Canopy in Rural France by Onze04"},"content":{"rendered":"

Set among a dense cluster of sports facilities, the 27,000-square-foot Centre Sportif et Culturel Marie-Jos\u00e9 P\u00e9rec and Salle de Danse Jos\u00e9phine Baker uses recreation to strengthen connections in a town of about 4,500 residents. A pedestrian route cuts through the roughly 60,000-square-foot site, linking established amenities and structuring movement across the broader athletic campus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Onze04 founder and principal architect Gustavo Silva-Nicoletti explains, the practice<\/a> sought to \u201cassume the role of an urbanist,\u201d turning the commission into an opportunity to create a new gathering place. The architecture reinforces that ambition through a program split between two buildings, each calibrated to operational demands and Brittany\u2019s mild maritime climate.<\/p>\n

\"InteriorSituated between two existing facilities, the new Centre Sportif et Culturel Marie-Jos\u00e9 P\u00e9rec and Salle de Danse Jos\u00e9phine Baker serves as an urban connector and civic lantern and is organized around two climatic strategies: compact heated volumes for the dance and squash facilities and a sports hall beneath a textile canopy. \u00a9 JUAN CARDONA Courtesy ONZE04 ARQUITECTES<\/p>\n

A compact concrete<\/a> volume houses the biomass-heated zones, including a dance studio, squash court, changing rooms, and communal areas, while the adjacent sports hall sits beneath a lightweight timber framework enclosed by a PVC-coated composite fiber membrane manufactured by Serge Ferrari.<\/p>\n

Rising nearly 92 feet at its highest points, the roof promotes natural airflow, helping maintain comfort throughout the interior. Rather than conditioning the vast volume year-round, the architects designed around winter temperatures averaging around 48\u00b0F, enabling largely unheated operation. Combined with abundant daylight and weather protection, the strategy minimizes the need for mechanical intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need shelter. You have to protect people from the rain and wind. And you need enough light to use the space,\u201d says Silva-Nicoletti. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t need to be eighteen or twenty degrees [64\u00b0F or 68\u00b0F] everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Minimalist\u00a9 JUAN CARDONA Courtesy ONZE04 ARQUITECTES<\/p>\n

Named through a public consultation, the complex honors three-time Olympic champion Marie-Jos\u00e9 P\u00e9rec and U.S.-born performer, Resistance member, and civil rights advocate Jos\u00e9phine Baker, two Black women whose achievements continue to resonate far beyond France.<\/p>\n

For Silva-Nicoletti, the project\u2019s significance ultimately lies beyond sustainability<\/a> metrics. \u201cArchitecture has to do with program, with feeling, with space, with proportion, with poetry,\u201d he says. As dusk falls and the illuminated membrane begins to glow above the town, those qualities become palpable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Set among a dense cluster of sports facilities, the 27,000-square-foot Centre Sportif et Culturel Marie-Jos\u00e9 P\u00e9rec and Salle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3322,41371,41372,5,41373,7,41374],"class_list":["post-66761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-architecture","tag-canopy","tag-community-center","tag-france","tag-gym","tag-sports","tag-sports-architecture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}