An unexpected meeting space
Following the old train tracks that crossed the industrial estate of The Moulin de Sainte-Marie , an hour from Paris, the skatepark powered by the art gallery Continuous Gallery winds through trees and bushes during 110 meters . But what is a facility like this doing in the middle of an old business park? "Unlike what might be assumed from such specialized equipment, skateparks bring together a diverse population . A meeting point for children and parents, a playground for the practice of all kinds of wheel sports, and space for the most trained in skateboarding, the skateparks build Temporary communities as well as lasting friendships ", they explain to us from the MBL architectes studio, in charge of shaping the proposal.
"Its ability to generate a form of 'public life' was what made building the skatepark on this site so relevant in the first place. It has brought a new audience to the gallery premises , not always familiar with contemporary art, and offers a meeting place for neighbors ", they continue.
For all audiences
Designed as a continuous strip that avoid any rigid delimitation , this construction is intended to serve as a 'structure' for the landscape, connecting distant buildings with each other as he slips into the shadow of linden, poplar, birch and buddleias . "Without any preconceptions about its design, the shape of the skate park it adapts to the specificities of the terrain and the existing vegetation", explain its ideologues.
In fact, when designing the project, the MBL architectes team had the desire to explore the fluidity characteristic of the first skateparks of the 1970s . "In pre-digital times, the found or built forms of the first skateparks prefigured the geometry that parametric architecture would manage to model and popularize at the beginning of our century. The project explores this prehistory, the empirical premises of a non-standard architecture ", they point out in this regard, referring to the curved characteristics of constructions created by studies such as Zaha Hadid's.
Not a single straight line
The construction of the equipment itself served as a performance more for the gallery. Thus, the metal frames were assembled and welded on site, after which fresh cement was sprayed on them. It was then stretched and smoothed to the desired shapes before it set.
The intervention is just one of many that MBL architectes has been carrying out in the area for ten years, during which they have been working on the progressive transformation of the old industrial factory of Boissy-le-Châtel in a place that does not detract from a contemporary art gallery such as Galleria Continua, also based in Italy, China, Cuba and Brazil . The project, always underway, aims to maintain and preserve the industrial wasteland, typical of the site. There, the debris from collapsed buildings , underlined by the presence of horticultural plants and the development of wild endemic species, merge and grow together with the diversity of industrial buildings.