We’ve featured a few projects by Nicolas Dorval-Bory, such as his extension for an artist residency and a sustainable house for winter sports; and now, he and Raphaël Bétillon have shared their latest conceptual project focusing on re-thinking Parisian bistros. A strong cultural component of Paris, the bistro offered a place of intense life and intellectual dynamism, with its typically noisy ambiance and chattering clients. However, recently, Dorval-Bory and Bétillon have felt that the bistro has slowly begun to loose its sense of vitality, as bistros are becoming “often disappointing, stuck up in ornaments of another century, mimicking with decors for tourists times when the lively creative atmosphere filled the place alone.” So, the pair decided to explore the atmosphere of such bistros in an effort to improve the quality of this traditional space. This approach has created a bistro that literally responds to the people occupying the space, leading to some interesting scenarios on an experiential level. ”Our intervention would then be about the control and expression of these atmospheric bodies, a contemporary way to celebrate climate as the primary user’s envelope. Architecture would split into two : on one hand, a built layout designed as a structuring machine, a back frame controlling, on the other hand, flows, phenomenons and invisible particles,” explained the architects.
More images and more about the project after the break.
The bistro is designed as a real atmosphere whose balance is governed by variations in pressure, flows, chemical properties of a particular area in tension with the presence of users. The space of the café is then divided into five distinct programmatic parts, five situations each with unique atmospheric features. The whole place fits between two horizontal metal grids, defining a continuous plenum allowing a complete air circulation guided by convective motions. Initiating its journey in a “dynamic chamber”, which polarized hot and cold springs create a barometric imbalance, air volume gradually spreads in every room of the place, where its properties will be modified.
