Brownfields + Cultural

La Friche - La Crèche

La Crèche - La Friche la Belle de Mai - Marseille 13

Delegated project management	SCIC SA Friche la Belle de Mai
Assistant to the Environmental Quality Project Manager	DoMene (Gabrielle RAYNAL)
Assistant to the contracting authority	Fare (Serge CAILLOL)
	Système Friche Théâtre participated in the development of the project.
Surface	600 m2
Cost	1 100 000 € HT
Project management	BET FLUIDS: G2i Engineering
	BET STRUCTURE: DVVD
	ECONOMY: ALAYRAC
	BE QEB: William MARTIN
Date	2009-2012
Mission	Complete

Rehabilitation of a water tank (fire basin of the former tobacco factories) in a crèche accommodating 50 children in 3 sections (12 babies, 20 medium, 18 large).

BBC label.
Silver medal BDM (Bâtiments Durables Méditerranéens).

CONTEXTE :
THE WASTELAND BEAUTY OF MAI :
AN URBAN REEF
In the heart of Marseille, a piece of city open to all since 1992, mainly dedicated to art and creation, improving over time.
For more than 15 years Matthieu POITEVIN and his team have been rehabilitating these former tobacco factories, opening them up to light and to the neighbourhood by building streets and services. They work with what already exists, inventing transitory uses for the artists who have settled in, integrating the life of the building site into the functioning of the whole, and encouraging encounters: here mixing the protected world of early childhood with this place open to the neighbourhood, and of international influence, which is the Friche la Belle de Mai (May Beauty Wasteland).

MINI FRICHE
How to grow up in a world of everything petit ?
How to see all the time and from everywhere or presque ?
How to find depth of field where there is no champ ?
How to get high in a bassin ?
Of course we keep the pond because it is beautiful and because it already tells a story, because its walls are made of stone with fruit, the stone transformed into fruit, it's not a beautiful story ça ?
And we drill it to show its full thickness, to show the chair !
And then inside, starting from the principle that the diagonal is longer than the transversal, we build the plan on it to gain distance.
It's a mikado of neatly arranged walls around the patios, and up there the roof becomes a belvedere, the only place from which the Belle de Mai can be seen.
Well, how about that, the belvedere as an echo to the panorama, the patios as echoes to the courtyards, the roof terrace as an echo ... to the roof terrace.
In the end, it's perhaps just a question of scale, the crib would be a miniature playground, just as small.
Unless the architects really don't have many ideas... If all these little ones became musicians, visual artists, actors, directors, poets... Why pas ?

URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL BIAS
A Observatoire : The little ones see higher.
The building is on one level and offers the children a large courtyard on the roof terrace. It's an observatory: the passing trains, the erection of tents on the square in front of the Cartonnerie, the truck deliveries, the ephemeral exhibitions... The teeming life of the
Wasteland, and Notre Dame de la Garde, and the city. Through this small piece of terrace, they reach the big landscape. An open world in a protected space. The building is organized around the reception and the programmatic will of the meeting parents / enfants / personnels. There are spaces for babies, others for walking children, a library for children and parents. They are organised around interior patios allowing children from the different sections, usually so compartmentalised, to discover each other, to see themselves grow, to smell the smells and listen to the sounds, to move from one to the other.

Here, no color at murs : We let them in with toys, cuddly toys, furniture and small dishes cooked by a chef from the Grandes Tables. On the ground, a grey track goes around the sections, materializing this loop.

Rehabilitation environnementale : The original basin has been preserved. The ceremonial stones cut at the head of the basin were recovered and positioned in front of the building, in finishing, to the south of the building in front of the car park. In addition to the protective function against cars, the stones cut at an angle and placed next to each other create gaps in which ornamental plantings were installed as part of an experimental urban garden programme.

The crèche wants to offer a quality environment. The project has obtained a recognition of its sustainable construction approach by the BDM (Bâtiments Durables Méditerranéens) cluster with an evaluation by its participative guarantee system at the silver level. The envelope achieves an energy performance of BBC -50%.
Intervention of a multimedia artist: Le Vaisseau by Mathieu BRIAND.

Video and digital devices allow children to play with their images, explore the outside world and communicate with others. This artistic commission is the result of a collaboration between the Crèche de la Friche and the Skills and Desires Office.