The Docks, City of Fashion & Design

The Docks, Cité de la Mode et du Design

This project was based on a long, thin, concrete building built in 1907 by Georges Morin-Goustiaux on the banks of the Seine. Located opposite the Gare de Lyon and near the Gare d'Austerlitz, the depot structure, which was one of the first reinforced-concrete buildings in Paris, was used to store goods brought up the river by barge and due for further transfer. The City of Paris launched a competition to create a new facility on this site, leaving it up to the architects whether they wished to retain the earlier structure or not. Jakob + MacFarlane opted to retain the structure of the existing building (slabs and pillars) and use it to form and influence the new project. The three-story structure was designed as a series of four pavilions, each with one 32 ft. 9-in. (10-m) wide bay and four 24 ft. 4-in. (7.5-m) wide bays. On the level corresponding to the Quai d'Austerlitz, the wider bay is accessible from the street, with the other bays 4 ft. (1.25 m) higher, facilitating the storage and loading of materials for transport. The concept of the new project is described as a "Plug-Over." A new skin inspired primarily by the flow of the Seine was added, as were promenades along the riverbank. The skin both protects the existing structure and forms a new layer containing most of the public circulation systems, as well as creating a new top floor to the existing building, developed with Michel Designe. The new structural system supporting this skin is the result of a systematic deformation of the existing conceptual grid of the older building. An arborescent generating method was used to create a new template from the existing system, in a sense "growing" the new building from the old, like new branches forming on a tree. The skin is made of glass, steel, wood decking, and a planted, faceted roofscape. As the architects state, "The 'Plug-Over' not only operates as a way of exploiting the maximum building envelope, but also enables a continuous public path to move up from the riverside through the building from the lowest level alongside the Seine to the roof deck and back down-a kind of continuous loop enabling the building to become part of the urban condition." The program encompasses the themes of design and fashion, and includes exhibition spaces, the French Fashion Institute (IFM), cafés, and restaurants. Highly visible during the day, due to its location opposite one of the main traffic arteries of Paris and because of its bright green color, at night the 215,280-sq. ft. (20,000-m²) building also stands out thanks to lighting designed by the artist Yann Kersalé.

Completed in 2012

Client Icade G3A / Caisse des Dépôts

Programme Institut Français de la Mode, events areas, restaurants, shops ;

Artistic lighting Yann Kersalé

Landscape designer Michel Desvignes

Signage Nicolas Vrignaud

Team RFR, Arcoba, Jean-Marc Weil

Photos: Nicolas Borel