THE MULATIERE’S WORKSHOPS: AN ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE IN TRANSITION

This final year project has been developed in the National School of Architecture of Lyon. It is the result of a reflection process set up by Benjamin Chavardès regarding the future of the Ateliers de la Mulatière which is a disused railway site located in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

By taking the opposite view from the delocalization of the Technicentre, our intervention is based on the architectural and economical local resources in order to emphasize the concept of a productive city. The project promotes short distribution channels as well as non-motorized transportations and the cohabitation of several programs such as production, education and sciences. Its aim is to create a social diversity in order to restore the attractiveness of the site and create a lively and multipurpose place. \nThe architectural work focuses on the reconversion of one of the existing hall. By conserving and highlighting the legacy specificities of the architecture, our intervention tends to reconnect the building with its environment. Thus, we intend to create new programs that are more closely linked to the activities in place as well as the future clusters. For that mater, the Hall would be able to accommodate a recycling materials center, a technical hub and a center of higher education. \nThe idea behind this rehabilitation process is to reinterpret the architectural and industrial language of the Hall. The project’s aim is to tell the story of the building’s legacy while making it useful again. \nBy generating an economy of means and modular spaces, the project intends to make the Hall a sustainable place and increases its capacity to evolve according to needs of use. Although the project preserves the historical value of the site, it also opens up new possibilities and leaves people a freedom of reinterpretation.