Designing a cultural ecosystem
How Parc architectes are planning to integrate a new cultural centre into Papeete’s natural landscape
Papeete is a city of conflicted identity. Once the hometown of Tahiti’s royal Pōmare Dynasty, it has more recently became mainly an administrative and governance hub; a city known for its proximity to the Fa’a’ā International Airport, and the location of the French and French Polynesian authorities.
In 2017, work began to rekindle city pride for the 27,000 residents of Papeete. The Ministry for the Promotion of Languages, Culture and the Environment released plans for a brand-new community centre in the middle of the city – a multi-million Euro project boasting a library, art centre, and action-packed programme for community activities and events.
Naturally, the design of the building will be central to its success.
Paris-based architecture firm, Parc architectes, have created a unique vision for the Paofai Cultural Center as part of the tendering stage of the project. I caught up with Co-Founder Brice Chapon, who took me through Parc’s philosophy and plans.
Let’s begin by talking a little bit about Parc Architects. What drives you and the agency?
I met Emeric Lambert in Switzerland at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In 2009, we created Parc architectes in Paris. The studio, based in Paris- Belleville district, is composed of architects, engineers and researchers. It employs about fifteen people. We are both involved in teaching and research. Emeric teaches at the Architecture School of Versailles and I teach at the Architecture School of Strasbourg.
Our studio develops environmental architecture for sites as diverse as the heart of a metropolis, suburban areas or natural sites. Considering architecture as a localised modification of the atmosphere, the projects always aim to create ambient environments adapted to the activity of the people.
Parc architectes reinterpret vernacular forms such as the patio, the pergola or the shutters to establish elementary relationships between the inhabitants and their environment. Through the integration of simple climatic devices, the architecture allows everyone to adjust their relationship to the environment.
We envision the projects as ecosystems integrating all living beings in a vast planetary park. The projects are not only intended for humans but also intended to welcome the other inhabitants of the city, such as plants and animals. By considering the context as an environmental environment, architecture is no longer only cultural; it is also natural.
Brice Chapon (right) and Emeric Lambert. Photo courtesy of Marine Peixoto.
How have you applied this methodology to your plans for the Paofai Cultural Center in Papeete?
We approach any project by aiming to integrate the environment in a broad sense, in a holistic vision in our architecture. We are interested in the climatic environment, by imagining simple and accessible climatic systems or devices for the people who will practice our architecture.
For example, a bench to sit on to enjoy the outdoor space. A balcony, designed in such a way that it projects the inhabitants into the surrounding landscape. A shadehouse that brings coolness to a hot climate and recovers rainwater. Roller shutters that sculpt the front façade and reconnect the users with their living spaces. Opening or closing shutters is a physical experience that helps people feel present in their environment. To delegate it to a machine is to lose the pleasure of the gesture, of the physical connection. We think that we need more tactile rituals, which anchor us in a more material way, to contrast with our digitalized environment.
Following the thread of this thought, we attach a lot of importance to the cultural environment of the projects we work on. This approach allows us to inscribe each project in the field of human culture, making it understandable to all.
The Paofai Cultural Center that we are currently developing is located in Papeete, French Polynesia. This project, beyond its magic and power as a place, is above all placed in a very particular climate that has pushed us to project ourselves by observing, much more than usual, the territory where the project was to be located.
The building brings together more than a dozen cultural facilities including a contemporary art center, a media library, an auditorium and educational workshops for several disciplines. One of the main challenges of this project was to succeed in designing a building that would be easily accessible to the public and that would put culture close to and at the service of the Polynesian public.
What were your inspirations and priorities when you were designing the Cultural Center?
The project was not a question of conceiving a mute and sacred temple of culture, but rather a space open and accessible to all. A living place, which gathers day and night activities. A place that could be visited several times a day because of the richness of the programmes gathered in the same space.
To do this, we imagined a glazed building that generously reveals its spaces to the street. We opened up the building with a public square to give it a breath of fresh air in the urban fabric – a time to stop. This square allows people to meet before entering the building, to cross paths.
To come back to the conception of the building, we have designed it in two parts: on the one hand, a place of learning (library, games library, media library, rooms for associations and extracurricular activities) and, on the other, an exhibition space with the first art center of Tahiti and its dedicated spaces. These two parts are installed on two sides of a vast sheltered hall, open to the outside, allowing access to any member of the public, or any curious person. The idea was to make culture as accessible as possible to everyone.
Were there any cultural or environmental factors that you needed to take into account?
To conceive a glass building in a tropical ocean climate was a challenge. So we installed the building under a shade. But it was a shadehouse largely inspired by the observation of tropical plants. First, this shadehouse is formed of V-shaped roofs that collect the rainwater – this is a shape that is overabundant in Polynesia; it’s the way that banana trees use their large leaves to bring water back against their stems and thus store it.
Then we quickly realised that cyclonic conditions could expose the building to winds of 260km per hour. We also observed the behaviour of palm trees exposed to cyclones. In addition to having flexible trunks, we quickly noticed that the leaf stalks of the palms were re-supplied under the effect of the wind uplift, thus strongly reducing the effect of uprooting. We were inspired by this natural device for the roof shade by multiplying the ‘V's with slight spaces between them, thus limiting the power of the uprooting during very strong winds. These are ultimately biomimetic principles that guided us in the design of the building.
In Polynesia nature and culture are one.
The objective of the project is to establish the building in a culture that is both traditional and contemporary. The architecture should be an extension of one and the other. For example, the plan of the Cultural Center is an assembly of Farés (traditional Polynesian dwellings), and in the exterior spaces we have installed stages in the manner of Paepae. The traditional stone walls surround the forecourt and the gardens to make the Cultural Center, a formative place with a living culture.
