Architect : Mikou Design Studio Salwa Mikou, Selma Mikou, Cécile Jalby, Lieselotte Huyghe, Iskra Pencheva, Trevor Ablott, Lorenzo Donati, Samiel Musolino, Mickael Courtay
Client : City of Saint-Gervais
Programme : Elementary school, primary school, day-care centre, restaurant, swimming-pool, 6 tennis courts, miniature golf course, club house, parking lot, garden of 1.8 ha.
Budget : 14.3 M € HT
Surface : 8 000 m2 Gross Floor Area
Location : Saint-Gervais-les-Bains
Date : competition 2009
Sports and Educational Complex, Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, 2009
The complete amenity is designed as a pure line, a bridge building in the landscape which addresses and runs alongside the road, placing the complex both on a longitudinal North-South axis towards Mont Blanc and on a crosswise East-West axis towards the Pratz Plain. The areas accommodating the educational and sports centre's important functions are both juxtaposed, to allow them to be clearly seen and identified from the road, and superposed in crosswise tiers to open perspectives towards the remarkable landscape on the West. With this siting and layout, the amenity structures the site while creating a closely-bonded relationship between architecture and nature by means of wide transparent through views towards the surrounding landscape on the level of the building's entrances and its external extension to the West by large terraces, canopies and planted gardens. The transparent crosswise through views designed as large glazed east-west patios punctuate the linear building while highlighting the main entrances, which stand out in the form of the building by creating visible, identified reference points.