© Serge Demailly
Architects: Comte & Vollenweider Architectes
Location: Cannes, France
Client: Ville de Cannes
Collaborators: Fanny Combier, Guillaume Faugué, Régis Roudil
Associated Architect: Julien Montfort architecture
Landscape: Michel Desvigne Paysage
Project Area: 3,830 sqm
Project Year: 2007-2009
Photographs: Serge Demailly
The construction of the tennis on the slopes of the Siagne Valley it’s a vast project of transformation of the landscape: it offers a mix of a tennis court and the garden. The garden of the Villa Maurice Chevalier is a vast wooded space offering continuous visual relief of hillsides. This geographical dimension is truly very important: tennis and the delicacy of the slopes join together in a way that protects the unity and the density of the surrounding forest. It is exactly this respect for landscape that characterizes our project: It is not a set of tennis and a garden but a set of tennis in a garden.
Our design offers many amenities. Plantations get organised geometrically and compose terrace areas where players and spectators can settle down.
The Club-House is a kind of walk nested under the contour of the hills. It accompanies the visitors from the entrance of the club towards a panoramic terrace that is nestled in the shade of big pines situated at the foot of the Maurice Chevalier villa.
Situated in the highest point, the clubhouse forms a “contour line” and shelters all the functions necessary for the smooth operations of the club (i.e. cloakroom, offices, restaurants and 80 parking places).
The structure consists of the concrete of the clubhouse literally emerging out of the earth, then dives back by following the slope of the ground and is followed by Maurice Chevalier Avenue.
The materials of club house are raw glass, wood and concrete. They will age together with minimum of maintenance.
The court forms a shelter for a sports practice under the extreme climates of rain or heat.
Tennis court settles down in the biggest slope of the site. It is here where the gentle movements of earth end, leaving no room to install platforms and banks.
Inside the surrounding wall, formed by the outside walls, manage the relationship on the ground. Here you will find a wooden net covered with polycarbonate white creating a shelter for relaxation. Our intention was to play under cover but keep the qualities of light for outdoor games ideal for tennis. Playing under cover but outdoors, such is the unique appeal of these works.
The structure wood was studied so as to optimise all the sections and keep the sensation of a symmetry. This is where the various components of the structure have the same dimension.
Cogs in bottom of court are closed by a stainless wire netting developed by “Jakob ” so that to allow to pass a maximum of light.
The opening and the centrings provided by the landscape, offer to the players the ideal conditions of games.
http://www.archdaily.com/69597/cannes-tennis-club-comte-vollenweider-architectes/#more-69597
