Located nearby Paris, the Olympic Aquatic Center will be one of the sports venues for the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in France. Europe’s biggest whitewater center will host the rowing, kayak, canoe and slalom competitions.
The architectural and landscape project fits into the existing historic landscape, reinterprets it and perpetuates it. The resulting sports facilities are distributed over the entire area but nevertheless combined as a unit, not least due to the route concept and the arrangement of the building sections.
Water is omnipresent and creates fluid transitions between the individual installations. It structures the overall site and transforms the space into a mosaic of small islands – a "sports archipelago" composed of four different sports centres. These include a training and recreational sports centre (rowing and kayaking), athletes' housing and training facilities, public water sports facilities, and public indoor sports facilities.
The building architecture takes up the adjacent landscape structure and continues it as a design element in a plateau integrating all functional areas. This overarching horizontal band provides access to public aquatic facilities for amateur athletes. The professional and amateur sports buildings are located beneath the wide, landscaped and partly balcony-like route, so that athletes can train undisturbed by visitors but at the same time remain visible and tangible to them.
The architectural concept combines various functional, technical and infrastructural requirements with landscape elements in a successful coherent appearance.
The various facilities appear very homogeneous due to the reduced choice of materials – exposed concrete and wood. The facades of the buildings arranged underneath the plateau use polycarbonate panels, a material used in boat building.
The first completed water sports facilities were opened in summer 2019. The outdoor facilities and plantation of the site were completed in 2021, marking the final completion of the architectural and landscape project.
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