Ruban Youth Center and Sports Facility by KOZ Architects

The Ruban Youth Center and Sports Facility has recently created a rainbow in Saint-Cloud. Its very colorful concept has been created by Paris-based KOZ Architects. With no lack of self-confidence, the imposing odd-looking building is also childishly simple and flashy.

The 17,000-square-foot recreation center was KOZ’s first project in prefab concrete. On the main facade, large cut-outs funnel daylight into the box thanks to an aluminum frame bolted to the concrete structure and holding the tinted glass panels, with colors ranging from red to green.

The project is mainly made of prefabricated concrete load-bearing panels. This system, an alternative to a steel-frame structure, was a first for the KOZ team, who brought on site the 8-inches thick panels prefabricated in Normandy.

This technique allows the building to look like a rainbow of vibrating color fields wrapped in a ribbon of concrete. Also, the molded and tinted reinforced concrete was the natural choice to highlight the external appearance, creating nice contrasts with the colored surfaces of the laminated panels, while satisfying spaces requirements.

Inside, the three-story fun palace is colorful in the extreme: red for the main gym and studio, yellow for circulation and skylights, and green for the climbing wall…

Aside of that omnipresent use of colors, the design is highly rational: interlocking spaces are superimposed without separation, configured to maximize usable area. Circulation spaces are designed as play areas with wide corridors inviting for spontaneous activity. On passage leading to an open roof deck.

[KOZ Architects]
Via [ArchitectureDesign] & [Modredes] & [ArchitectMagazine]