One of six masonry heaters built for the town of Rosny-sous-Bois: this one serves the Jacques-Chirac leisure centre. The brief is anything but domestic: the unit must stand up to collective use and sit within reach of children. It does not heat the building — far too large for that — but provides supplementary heat in the activity room, alongside the main heating system.
Hence a deliberately plain, edge-free design: a pale rendered volume, with no bench or projecting shelf, and a small firebox set low — the fire stays visible from the floor, at the height of a seated child, but the glass is set back from the walkway.
The building is a new timber-framed, timber-clad structure. The chimney stacks were clad in the same vertical boarding as the façades, so that they read as architectural elements rather than technical outlets. This means dealing with the roof penetration and the safety distances to timber from the design stage — a matter settled with the design team, not on site.
Completed in 2019.
