Clubhouse and Locker Rooms in Coudoux | 2024

Fabien Tran Nguyen, the lead architect of Mind Architecture, works through his projects on the envelope of buildings and especially its use on interfaces to mix different things such as public and private spaces, urbanscape and seascape, port and cities, and different materials according to their relevance on climate change.

For this project, the City of Coudoux aimed to create new locker rooms for the Jean Lacreusette football stadium. The program also includes a clubhouse.

Inserted in an embankment, this is a 2-foors project determined by the levels of the high and low ground.

The project is designed according to the flows of football players and the public. Only players have access to the changing room area through a dedicated door leading to the exterior passageway, which also gives access to a staircase leading to the high field. The public can access the low car park as well as the stands at the high ground level and the clubhouse on the first floor.

The architect proposed a set consisting of two offset and interlocking volumes. The low concrete volume surrounded by metal locks accommodates the sports facilites including two large changing rooms, a referees’ changing room, a storage room and a maintenance and technical room. The upper level is a wooden volume delimited by a large arch and accommodates the clubhouse, an office and public toilets. The arch is sculpted to allow the circulation of certain flows while blocking others. Its shape also makes it possible to create effective sun protection.

The structure is mixed wood and concrete in order to limit CO2 emissions into the atmosphere while maintaining the necessary inertia inside the building to deal with summer comfort.

The upper floor is made of a glued laminated frame and all of the facades are made of a wooden frame. The terrace is also in wood material. The main material of the project is a local species, Aleppo pine.

The cladding of the facades consists of vertical slatted cladding in class 3 autoclaved Aleppo pine, brown or gray, while the arch made up of the roof and its side walls is cladding made of solid wood planks. The passageway to the south is covered by a roof overhang limiting solar gain avoiding summer overheating.

At the clubhouse level, the roof overhang also provides protection from the main summer solar gains. A white waterproofing significantly improves summer thermal comfort.

The architect also designed wood furniture for the club-house with birch plywood panels and Beech multi-line panels.

The project’s insulation is available in bio-sourced materials (hemp, linen and cotton). The foot of the west facade houses a planter planted with local species requiring little maintenance and the two-wheeler room has a planted trellis on the south facade.

At the interface of public and players, this building is a pilot project for the creation of an Aleppo pine sector in the region, which could be a real game changer for the future of the construction sector in Europe.

Category:Sports and RecreationLocation:Bouches-du-Rhône, FranceArchitect: Fabien Tran Nguyen, FranceArchitecture Office:Mind ArchitectureLead Architects:Fabien Tran Nguyen, Mind ArchitectureAssociate Architects:Città Architectes Engineering : Strada IngénierieDesign Team: Fabien Tran Nguyen, Clélia NaudPhotographer: Fabien Tran Nguyen, Mind Architecture