Typologies: renovation and conversion of a theater
Location: Le Brassus, Municipality of Le Chenit, Vaud, Switzerland
Client: Public, Municipality of Le Brassus
Collaboration: Louise Plassard, Almir Delfieu
Competition: 5th place with honorable mention
File: BRA
Date: 2025
Behind the curtain
Providing volume to bring functional flexibility:
The proposal for flexibility begins with an intervention on the fluidity of circulation and the interpenetrability of sectorized spaces around the addition of horizontal and vertical distribution volumes that decompress access.
The project presents the desire to be able to interchange uses around an identical volume (the reference volume being that of the stage) between the rehearsal room and the club room. This multipurpose room is located between the foyer and the Audemar Piguet room, which allows for a variety of activities with different uses/programs. The presence of storage space directly connected to each large room gives them a certain autonomy that can be transformed into interchangeability.
Outdoor layout:
The project redesigns the forecourt at the theater entrance. With its new café/foyer space, open ground floor, and fluted façade, it beckons passersby. It features a narrow, sunny terrace between the garden and the path to the church. The latter, with its change in materiality, marks the separation between the two entities and highlights the church portico with its axiality. At the rear of the volume, paved areas provide places to rest, facing the countryside, under trees surrounded by benches, allowing delivery trucks for the kitchens and theater to pass through occasionally. As the parking lot is only used on busy days, it blends into the fields, paved with grass pavers to allow maximum porosity in the ground.
Providing volume to bring functional flexibility:
The proposal for flexibility begins with an intervention on the fluidity of circulation and the interpenetrability of sectorized spaces around the addition of horizontal and vertical distribution volumes that decompress access points.
The project aims to enable interchangeable uses around an identical volume (the reference volume being that of the stage) between the rehearsal room and the club room. This multipurpose room connects the foyer and the Audemar Piguet room, allowing for a wide range of activities with different uses/programs. The presence of storage space directly connected to each large room gives them a certain autonomy that can be transformed into interchangeability.
Room / scenography
Height: increase
By lowering the floor level of the hall (to its original level) to be flush with the hall, the project offers a variety of uses. Current stage design increasingly requires direct contact with the audience. By moving the ventilation unit and its floor, the stage gains even more volume to accommodate a 1-meter-high grid in the fly tower, while still leaving a 6-meter-high empty space. A high stage can always be temporarily installed (rented) for standing concerts.
Width: multi-purpose
If a proscenium is required, the first three rows can be integrated into the thickness of the floor, adding x m² for dance performances, for example.
With a large floor space of Xm² once the 11 rows of bleachers are folded into the back wall, the hall can host any type of event.
The structure of the wooden bleacher platform can be reused to create any interior partitions.
