Article source: Peripheriques Architects

The new media library structures “the gateway” of Saint-Paul city. Its location choice comes as an urban answer to the need of a strong identity in the landscape scale. This building has to become a cultural landmark, through information and training, as well as a visual one through its architecture. Located between sea and mountain, the building shape is a 34m side cube. The
idea of an urban landmark is enhanced by a strong aesthetic vocabulary of the volume related to the ”book” media: façades are structured by a stack of wavy lines reminiscent of the book pages pattern. Those “pages” are solar shading systems vibrating around the construction.

Image Courtesy © Luc Boegly

• Architects: Peripheriques Architects
• Project: MEDIA LIBRARY ST PAUL
• Location: ST PAUL, Ile de la Réunion, France
• Photography: Luc Boegly
• Project manager : Juliette Bonnamy with With : Charlotte Lefebvre, Alfredo Luvison, Claire Oiry, Emily Murphy, Timothée Kazmierczak, Pierre Tignon, Karine Bergevin, Camille Isaac-Dognin, Charline
  Lalanne, Guillaume Guilbert
• Landscape designer: ZONE UP
• Artist: MICHEL BATORY
• 3D pictures: L’AUTRE IMAGE
• Project management: SEDRE for Saint-Paul city
• Area : 4 567 m² shon (net floor area)
• Cost : 13,17 M € H.T.
• Schedule: competition May 2011 – completed in April 2015
• Program : 230 signs, Achievement of a media library with café, restaurant, reception area and gardens, conference and entertainment spaces, self-learning and citizenship spaces, reading and media areas, sound and image center, and an administration.

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