Police Station of Safety and Proximity in Clichy Montfermeil

Marked by an urbanization of the 60s, the Clichy / Montfermeil plateau is situated between two neighboring municipalities of the suburbs of Paris. Since 2004, it benefits from a urban renewal project inspired by the ground plan designed by the French architect Bernard Zerhfuss (Grand Prix de Rome 1939). The police station, which is the centerpiece of the new urbanity, provides a "contextual' response to its plural environment. Along the urban boulevard, it shows a front stage, a long wall of solid steel, enhanced by a layer of undulating blades. In front of the city entrance crossroad, it creates a tension through a 'built' gap delimited by a set of layers: the public entrance is made of glass; the separation between the public parking and the courtyard, is made of perforated steel. At the junction of both, a red box reveals a vertical flowing function, also used as emblematic urban sign. At the foot of the 'HLM'housing at moderated rents, it sculpts a glaze; a work of art, with a planted slope absorbing the plot boundaries; a thick shell in steel emerges and pierces an opening at 8 meters high, so that it lightens up to suggest evanescence. Its inclination, as the set of lights produced by its perforations, dodges any comparison to a high surrounding wall. And yet, it is indeed a protective wall softened by its plastic characteristics; but even if its design is probably striking, it never transmits any rejection. The police station displays a great number of 'environmental' resolutions inherent to the intrinsic qualities of its architecture and optimized by efficient technical choices (urban heating, double flow ventilation, underfloor heating); however, what really confers its 'sustainable' assets is the real working and living comfort offered to its inhabitants, if we consider it may be difficult to work in calmly.