Les Bains des Docks Aquatic Complex

Imagined as a quay thickening, the water complex is a brute and evident mass that presents itself to the visitors like a metallic and changeable shell to the Havraise light. A game of random openings on the facades gives a view, from the exterior, of the wealth of the internal spaces inhabited by water.

The entrance is positioned on the Quai de la Réunion, facing the future Centre de la Mer. It is dug into the façade and composed of a continuation of filtered spaces progressively forming the passage from the exterior towards the interior and the beginning of the visitor’s journey into the building.

In the interior, the lobby and the spaces of the water complex are conceived as massive pads of varied and unexpected geometric shapes that articulate the pools.

Photograph by: Philippe Ruault

Source: Mies Arch Prize: http://www.miesarch.com/