The new media library is set in the context of a richly abundant built heritage and landscape. It is located in the town of Pélissanne in Provence, formerly a fortified town, which has preserved a large number of town houses of great heritage value. One of these is Maureau House in the heart of the town, together with its park, which are now home to the media library.

The positioning of the media library respects the integrity of the park and the house. It sets up a dialogue between two eras, two dimensions, by opposing the verticality of the volume of the house with the horizontality of the extension. The building is both functional and unique in its visual expression.

The spatial structure of the enfilade of rooms inside Maureau House has been retained; the internal organisation of the media library extension is straightforward and uncluttered. The areas that need to be decompartmentalised are in the western part of the building, a distribution that preserves the integrity of the reception rooms of the eastern part, which have been carefully restored.
The extension deploys two floors of vast extremely flexible areas for consulting documentation. Applying a system of staggered rows to the space gives the media library a number of very different ambiences. While the ground floor opens wide onto Maureau Park and allows readers to immerge themselves in the landscape, the first floor is closed off and more introverted, offering a completely different ambience by projecting the visitor into the branches of a majestic plane tree, whose presence is amplified by the building's only curve. The garden also has a place within Maureau House, echoed in the deep green colour used specially for the refurbishment of its furniture, staircases, shutters and door canopy.

Following on from the programme for the media library, the town's authorities subsequently commissioned the agency to convert a house and a public passage linking Moreau Park and the square in front of the town hall. This footpath provides an opportunity to offer new traffic routes, new non-motorised connections within the town. The floors and windows were taken out of the house - only one door has been preserved - and part of the roof replaced with glass tiles to provide a bright place that opens onto the vegetation in the Park.

Contracting authority : City of Pélissanne

Project management : Dominique Coulon & associés
Architects : Dominique Coulon, Jean Scherer
Assistant architects : Gautier Duthoit, David Romero-Uzeda, Javier Gigosos, Diego Bastos-Romero, Olivier Poulat, Margot Machin, Thomas Bukenmeyer, Florent Revel, Théo Petit, Yannick Signani

Structural engineering : Batiserf Ingénierie
Mechanical engineering : BET G. Jost
Electrical engineering : BET G. Jost
Cost control and monitoring : E3 Economie
Landscape : Bruno Kubler
Acoustician : Euro Sound Project
Roads and utilities : Lollier Ingénierie

Program : creating a 982m2 media library across 615 m2 of existing square footage of a former 3 storeys house and a 367m2 extension, plus restructuring a 3 450m2 city park

Location : Rue de la République, 13330 Pélissanne, France
GPS coordinates : 43°37'52.1"N 5°09'03.8"E

Surface : 982 m2 (existing square footage 615m2 + 367m2 extension)
Budget : 3 336 000 euros

Schedule :
Competition : January2015
Studies : 2015 to 2017
Implementation : 2017 to 2019
Inauguration: 2020

Construction companies : Demolition and Modeling (COSEPI France), Water proofing (SMED), Exterior steel joinery (BOUISSE SMAB), Exterior wood joinery (VOLLMER), Locksmithing (SFM du LUBÉRON), Restoration of the facade and Scaffolding (ATRIUM BATIMENT), Interior wood joinery (CONCEPT PARACHINI, MENUISERIE BAREAU), Wood floor (SINGER), Plastering (PROVENCE PEINTURE REVETEMENT), Tiles floors and walls (SPTB), Interior painting and Finish cleaning (PROVENCE PEINTURE REVETEMENT), Hoist (CFA division de NSA), Electricity (YLIOSS), Heating and ventilation (STME), Sewerage netwok (STME), Outside work (EUROVIA), Furniture(IDM), Signage (POL SUD COMMUNICATION)

Photography : Eugeni Pons