2017 Salomé BaczynskiSalomé Baczynski - What a circus!
A treasure of architecture, the Town Hall of Ougrée was once intensely animated. Today, in contradiction with its context, the building is struggling to get noticed. The site conveys cravings and needs to exist with its close and distant environment. In order to do this, it is proposed to create a clear rupture with the highway, a harmful component for the site. Therefore it allows the redeployment of the building and its surroundings to the outside.

The town hall of Ougrée itself is characterized by three entities, each ones with its own specificities. Interior spaces have very different statues as well as the facades. This particularity served as a lever in the integration of the new program, a school of circus arts, within the building.
Indeed, the “boardroom” is a totally free space, widely open to the outside and designed to allow the reception of the public. These characteristics have allowed the integration of one of the main training and representation room, the trampoline room.
The second part of the building is characterized by a superposition of three floors supported by a post-beam structure that rhythms the spaces. Thus, the functions adapted to this type of spatiality are housed in this part. It welcomes administrative areas, the two smaller double height training rooms, the workout room and the cafeteria that is on the top floor and enjoys the view to the outside.

The definition of interior and exterior materials respects the original expression of the building, which is strongly connoted by a vintage spirit.
In the “boardroom”, very characteristic part of the building, the spaces are preserved almost identically. In the second part of the building the different atmospheres are respected: the circulation spaces are neutral and the structure appears clearly while the interior spaces are more colourful.

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