SAGEP Drinking Water Treatment Plant, Orly

Project overview: 

Construction of a drinking-water treatment plant intended for human consumption, with a capacity of 150,000 m³/day, on the ORLY reservoir site (l'Hay-les-Roses).

The project is sited at the north of the plot, in line with SAGEP's wish, and runs parallel to the existing building. This position offers two clear architectural advantages.

The l'Hay-les-Roses water-treatment plant is mostly seen from the E. Gérard stadium and from the A6 motorway. It is therefore necessary to use the new construction to upgrade this site. Its placement allows the long façade of the reservoirs to be partly concealed and gives the plant a more modest scale. The position of the project facing the site's entrance enables it to be given a real entrance, more in keeping with a welcoming and warm facility intended to receive the public.
The whole intervention is carried out while preserving as much existing vegetation as possible, and gently reshaping the ground around the building.

The treatment of the façades will give a new image to this facility. Indeed, in the face of the harshness of the concrete, we choose the natural quality of timber. In the face of the monumental verticality of the reservoir, we set in opposition a façade of horizontal timber siding. In the face of the monolithic appearance of the existing building, we offer the lightness created by the spacing between timber panels.
Only large slits, where the windows are placed, animate the façade. Concrete brises-soleil protect from the sun's rays.
The timber cladding is supported by a primary vertical structure of galvanised steel fixed to the raw-concrete walls of the plant. On this structure, fixing brackets receive the Douglas fir or autoclaved-pine siding boards. These panels are fixed with stainless-steel screws.
The timber cladding makes it possible to conceal the elements that disturb the image of a building: ventilation grilles, rooftop equipment, air intakes and changes in building height. This solution offers a pure and clear architecture.