A makeover for the Albert Schweitzer Community Centre - Fabien Brissaud - France

The town of Dammarie-Les-Lys in France is organized around three main interlinking spaces: the Lys plain, the historical town center and the park surrounding the Abbey. The Albert Schweitzer community center is located in the heart of the Lys plain, in a neighborhood made up of several thousand housing units built in the 1970s and known, at the time, as an "urban center."

The challenge of refurbishing/expanding the Albert Schweitzer community center, as well as dealing with its immediate surroundings, was to provide the neighborhood with a dynamic image of its own renewal.

The Albert Schweitzer community center has a multimedia library, an associations' hub, an administrative hub as well as a medical and psychological health center (with a maternal and child protection unit) to which an early childhood space has been added. In order to modernize the whole block, the architects decided to renovate access to the facility by creating three distinct entrances. The facades are adorned with a glass and metal skin – brushed stainless steel and rusted metal – that winds around the building like a ribbon.