By
Solène Lavenu
Published on
June 20, 2024 at 2:21 p.m.
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Pierre Cornil, the architect and director of the Chaix & Morel et Associés firm, in charge of the project Chantereyne Sports Palace in Cherbourg (Manche), answers questions.
Can you introduce your firm?
Pierre Cornil: “We are a Parisian architectural firm, founded in 1983. Since 2018, I have joined management alongside three other partners, and we have carried out numerous sports projects such as the Yves-Allainmat stadium and the Moustoir park in Lorient, the Limoges Sports Palace, which we are delivering in 2025, the modernization of the Roland-Garros stadium or the European History Museum in Brussels. »
Your firm was chosen for the Chantereyne sports complex project. What were the particularities of the latter?
Pierre Cornil: “The first is the location. The complex is located in the heart of a city. There was a real challenge to integrate it into this landscape with the added proximity of the port. The second challenge was to be able to group all the users together without one disturbing the other. It’s quite rare, in fact, to have to design a sports venue which is also a real living space which will operate not a few hours per week but per day. There are schoolchildren, amateur athletes, professionals, associations…”
“We didn’t want to call everything into question”
It was supposed to be a renovation, but it ultimately became a deconstruction before a reconstruction. How did you approach these changes?
Pierre Cornil: “The project worked very well when we designed it. But for reasons of energy renovations, it was necessary to further insulate the roof of the structure which caused loads to drop. We had to do a geothermal analysis and we realized that the foundations no longer met current standards even though the building is solid. It was built in 1975, there have been many additional acoustic, geothermal, seismic standards. To give an idea, today there are around twenty massive foundation pads, tomorrow there will be 100. This changed the plans but not the project. We didn’t want to call everything into question. »
Constraints had to be met for a renovation, when ultimately it was a new construction which would surely have required fewer constraints, right?
Pierre Cornil: “ I like to say that the best projects are born from constraints. We’re used to having to surpass them, so no, that hasn’t been a hindrance. On the contrary, this made it possible to imagine a beautiful project. »
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