Location: Paris, France.

Architect: studioMilou architecture.

The Carreau du Temple, a historic market in Paris, was reopened in 2014 as a cultural and sports facility. The building, which is one of the few surviving structures from the nineteenth-century tradition of metal-framed architecture in Paris, was designed by studioMilou architecture. The firm sought to emphasize the refinement of the structure and make it as transparent as possible, replacing the masonry wall with a glass, steel, and wood one. The façades were reinforced with new steel pillars and doors were inserted to open outwards with an extension of less than 20 cm onto the exterior. The upper part of the building uses limited-width steel frames as the setting for double-glazed panels to retain the original relationship between empty and filled spaces while meeting acoustic and thermal constraints. Light-colored oak was used for the interior finishing, and a second skin of oak panels was placed 45 cm away from the metal arches and exterior pillars to meet thermal and acoustic regulations. The original glazing of the roofs was entirely replaced by new steel-framed glazing elements, and the zinc roof-covering was conserved. The building was extended by the addition of two lower levels to attain a total gross floor space of 9,045m2, including a 250-place auditorium on the ground floor level.

Photo credit: Fernando Javier Urquijo / studioMilou architecture.