Children’s Toy Library Remodeling Project by LAN Architecture

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The Bonneuil sur Marne local authority needed to create a public building and a play space for children. In this project, the work from LAN Architecture helped them to built a sophisticating building on 380 square meters area.

The building itself has been established in an area where 1960s social housing has had a strong physical and social impact. To respect the dual nature of the building, the exterior and interior spaces are designed on the certain manner. The monolithic shell-like elevations are closely linked to the surrounding urban context. We wanted to create a strong urban symbol able to stand out from its environment, whose shell would protect its core and participate in the regeneration of Bonneuil-sur-Marne’s social structures.

In order to develop ideas in remodeling the building and simultaneously resolve a number of problems, the architect broke down their mind into several points:
- New use for an existing building
- Design of a children’s play area
- Creation of a small-scale public facility in a socially unstable area occupied by large housing complexes
- The difficulties of a very restricted budget (initially, the programme simply called for a new interior layout)

They intended to design a building that had no sense of scale and which would appear timeless, a dense solid mass, an urban symbol standing out from its environment, a shell able to protect its contents. The result might have shocking: a bunker-like appearance. Some people might think that the building was more to a child-prison rather than a convenient public space.

The Remodeling Strategy
Inspired by a medical logic of intervention, their creation was an additional freestanding skin which allowed them to control the interfaces between exterior spaces, building and interior spaces, as well as meet the need to provide generous volumes.

The new elevations covering the existing building are adapted to the building’s changed use and provide for the incorporation of a new main entrance, an open courtyard on ground floor level and additional surface areas for administrative functions. This solution maintained the existing in-situ cast green-tinted concrete shell.

The decision was taken to create a hermetic separation between the exterior and the open and colourful interior spaces. Children play in a sort of cocoon, rich in light variations, that rises up over the two levels; a simple, functional and comfortable scale and volume fully adapted to the needs of its users.

Via. Photograph by Jean-Marie Monthiers

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