Community Technical Center, La Buisse, France, Adrien Cuny, France

Architects: ATELIER ACTM
Client: City of La Buisse
Design team: ESEB – SORAETEC – AXIOME - MMO
Photographer: Mayvonne ARNAUD

The city of La Buisse had a simple request: to turn a former carpentry shop into a community technical center, and by the same token enhance the outlook of the town entrance. The Lowest-carbon material is the material already onsite, hence it makes sense to renovate the old shop.

The architects decided to extend the roof overhangs in order to redraw the building proportions. The masonry is made of cements extracted a few miles away, and of stones collected in a quarry nearby. It looks like the old houses in the village.

The wood for facades is procured in adjacent forests. Boards are thick and rough, alike those in barns of the surrounding territory. The whole is covered with zinc, laid out in a traditional way, to secure a long-lasting use of the construction. We open two large windows in the roof to assert the identity of the building and to find places to live in the attic. We call for ancestral know-hows and local materials to modify this shop, initially made of cinder blocks.