BURNT LANDS

The aim of this project for a research and training centre for forest fire fighting is to explore the notion of collective and personal imagination in the face of a common element: fire. It also aims to experiment with the notion of building as a means of raising public awareness through the imagination it generates.

The protection of the environment and the population against the risk of forest fires is dealt with in three dimensions in this project. Firstly, it is addressed by the program itself: a research and training centre against the risk of forest fires. Secondly, the emphasis is placed on raising public awareness by integrating this program into a hiking trail that is heavily used during the summer. And thirdly, it is also being raised by the imagination of passers-by about the architectural space, the materiality and the constructive principles. Set in the heart of the pine forest, and based on vestiges of the Second World War, the program is spread out in four entities marking a graduation from South to North during the journey between places of knowledge, learning, popularization of knowledge and practical application. The program includes an archive centre, research laboratories, a conference centre and a fire station. On this site, different types of military works are presented, from which the project will be inserted and composed. There are cannon emplacements, air raid shelters, and dug-out pits scattered in the forest between two roads. The main storage area to the south will be the archives, with its four vaults for storing the works, and on the surface the reading room with a patio. The air-raid shelters allow the setting up of research laboratories. As these spaces are already confined and sturdy, they will enable the materials and systems developed to be tested in complete safety. Thus, from each of the four bunkers, an office wing will be developed, with space between each wing to provide light and direct access to the outside. The pits dug will allow me to position the fire station, which is also buried in the ground, and whose central overturning space allows the articulation between the hangar and the offices. As for the conference centre, it is placed in such a way as to put in tension the buried spaces and the buildings above ground. From a constructional point of view, raw concrete is massively used and the glazing is made of golden polycarbonate to recall the visors of boilermakers in steel mills.