The Athletes Village

The Athletes Village: A new district of the Grand Paris—Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Dominique Perrault envisions six blocks perpendicular to the waterway, akin to colossal ships anchored by the Seine. The exhibition, with mirrors symbolizing the water’s reflective surface, showcases a design method in a riverside development project that promotes airflow and broadens water channels and successfully reconnects the river to the city center.

The Athletes’ Village, primed for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, encompasses neighborhoods such as Île Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, and Saint-Étienne-sur-Seine, all of which directly face the Seine. This village is crafted with six blocks, designated as ‘Island Boats’. This layout evocatively paints the image of “six islands in the Seine”, silhouetted against the urban horizon.

Fashioned to be slender yet elongated, the blocks lean towards the river, inviting its refreshing aura while fostering natural air corridors. The architectural design prioritizes vast green expanses and incorporates a central open space offering panoramic river vistas, thereby ensuring unobstructed views even from deep within each block. Additionally, with half of the entire athletes’ village earmarked as public areas, the compound exudes an airy, communal ambiance.