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Client: Champ Libre

Each summer, the French cities of Montpellier and La Grande Motte host Le Festival Des Architectures Vives (Festival of Lively Architecture). These twin festivals seek to raise awareness about architecture among the public, and to give needed exposure to the work of up-and-coming designers. In La Grande Motte, the exhibition weaves its way through the city center, a site designated as “Heritage of the 20th Century” due to the prevalence of works designed by architect Jean Balladur. The project takes place on the banks at the end of the port of La Grande Motte facing the sea. The Strong context of the site involves significant reflection on the contextuality of the place.

Breath Box is positioned on the banks and try to translate this identity into a pavilion. Less curved and less pristine than the surrounding buildings, the banks have a more raw and hard appearance than the city that surrounds. The massive retaining walls, with a frame of vertical concrete, were the starting point for the layout shape of Breath Box. Reversing the angles to open towards the sea while reinterpreting the verticality of the frame thanks to cleats aperture. This project hosts and intrigue by its shape and consistency.

The idea has been to adopt this same horizon in the pavilion. Using a reflective material, it can be incorporate to the pavilion and then transformed by it. Still in a search of contextuality, the site have strong winds throughout the day. What is interesting is that it is the site itself that change its image along the day. The facade facing the horizon, thus consists of 365 mirror plates poly metal suspended, allow the wind to move the reflect of the sea along its intensity. This system permit to recreates an abstract landscape, its movement offers a new experience every day.

Inside the pavilion, mirrors offer a different experience. Closing the view, the pavilion returns a distorted image of it visitor. Looking carefully at these mirror plates and we begin to see the sea according to the variations of the wind. Then offer a whole set of rediscovery of this place, visitors can raise these plates to glimpse the sea in order to rediscovering this well-know horizon.

The material constituting the front facade towards the sea are polished metal plates of dimension 20cm x 20cm. This material was preferred over the others because it has a high resistance, which was necessary in view of the strong winds on the site of the Grande Motte. In addition, this material offers a particular reflection, returned picture is very clear but at the same time distorted at certain angles, adding an additional effect to the wind. These plates, just hanging with metal rings on steel tubes, allow great malleability. Weight keeps it up at the horizontality while allowing the affect of the wind passage. The idea is to work with strong and concrete materials, such as the site, working with metal has added an additional component to the way we wanted to develop in the beginning: the sound. By their clashing, metal plates producing a familiar sound to the people of the port, such as noise mats boats. The sound travels throughout the interior of the project and provides a nice rhythm that comes in accordance to plate movement. All these elements come together to form a united that exchange. The sunlight filtered through the black lenght of wood, reflected in mirrors, producing spots of light moving with the wind.

The project is a relationship between all elements of the site, a pavilion that plays with its context by updating scales to appropriate it. Breath Box is a simple experiment at first glance, increasingly complex over his apprehension. It is an ode to contemplation, which allows everyone to see what he wants to discern.