MAiLLe

Today, city expansion is densifying suburbs like the Parisian river-island of St Denis, changing its mall’s environment. Its mono-functional, car-centric model is failing and obstructs rather than supports the city, congesting its limited roads. This pushes the shopping mall into a new context, where the architecture of sprawling parking lots and blank façades separates the neighborhoods. Considering demolition, especially of this magnitude, to be a luxury, we look to what already exists, asking: Can the mall reconnect with its new environment, and evolve into a new form of marketplace?

In a continually evolving city context, we believe an architect's role is to lay the groundwork for future urban evolutions. Drawing inspiration from the island’s past ties to the river, the aim is to create an environmental infrastructure that supplies the building in a sustainable way, with goods, water and electricity. Utilising an unusual typology: a vast two-storey, high load-bearing network of reinforced concrete columns and vaulted beams. An alternative mode of delivery is achieved through a river port, freeing up the congested road. In tandem, a water tower and treatment plant provide a local and cheaper source of water, while hydroelectric water mills provide energy. Inspired by the characteristics of old covered marketplaces, this project seeks to reintroduce urban permeability. Retaining the reinforced concrete structure, the building is opened up horizontally using wide avenues, small alleys and courtyards. It’s then opened up vertically with double height spaces, natural light and ventilation, using varying types of canopy: bare vaulted beams, glazed or closed roofs. These different canopies signal and accommodate a mix of activities in order to make the building multi-functional as well as multi-temporal: shops, restaurants, workshops, offices, housing and public facilities. Addressing immediate social and environmental concerns, this project goes further as it prepares for future urbanism. By elevating and displacing supply infrastructure to the river, MAiLLe offers a walkable ground floor for the community. Creating an urban experience of light and shadows, semi-public and private under one roof.