Calderon-Folch Studio

Chauffailles, a village in the French Bourgogne, needs a new multifunctional community centre that will be named Léonce Georges, in memoriam of a local hero.

For this purpose, the Town Hall acquires the old farm of the convent “Les sœurs de Jésus”. This old and disused construction, placed in a gentle slope opened to the fields, was practically in ruins; a deep rehabilitation and a further addition were needed in order to house the new use.

The project recuperates one of these rural constructions, like granaries, barns, warehouses,: rather large shelters mainly used for storing grain or machinery normally with a single opening facing the yard. These are anonymous and simple architectures, completely utilitarian, built with a specific shape and size for better storage; the same way the materials and sources chosen are local and accessible. This is where their beauty is held: in their pure utility, in their radical symbiotic and productive relationship witch are primitive forms of sustainability.

The original L-shape construction is kept and full rehabilitated, keeping the typical elements such us the big wooden beams, the stone walls and the tiled roof. The addition, located in the adjoined yard, completes this volume with a new volume made of the local wood (Douglas). One big door opens outwards to the fields.

The new volume is built in the way the old wooden barns in La Bourgogne were built: the different sides and faces are supported by a braced structure witch becomes sheathed. It is a dry construction, half prefabricated and dismountable, willing to recuperate the social character of the rural constructions.

The new centre Léonce Georges in Chauffailles is a facility designed to respond the need of diaphanous spatiality to hold large community meetings as weddings, receptions, dancing parties, etc.  Appropriate light and acoustics as well as comfortable climatic conditions are needed. The use of local materials blends with the landscape, the village and the people.