On 13 September 2017 in Lima, the International Olympic Committee officially chose Paris as the host city for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, gathering 206 delegations and approximately 15,000 athletes, will be held from 26 July to 11 August 2024 with the Paralympic Games held from 28 August to 8 September 2024. The Aquatics Centre is the only major facility that will be built for the 2024 Paris Games, since 95% of the dedicated sites are already in place or will be temporary. Situated
on the former site of the Engie research centre, the location of the Aquatics Centre was selected for: its strategic proximity to the Stade de France and the future athletic village, its excellent access by car and public transport, the intense dynamic of urban renewal underway in this sector.
The Métropole du Grand Paris is the client for the Aquatics Centre regarding “construction, development, upkeep, and operations of major cultural and sports facilities
of international or national stature.” It is also the client for the adjacent pedestrian overpass that will cross the A1 expressway and link the Aquatics Centre to the Stade de France. Construction of the Aquatics Centre solves five major challenges: enables the organization of events of a national and international scale, will be a model facility at the service of high-level athletes, facilitates access to swimming and learning how to swim, develops sporting activities for city dwellers and promotes the practice of sports, ensures a highly exemplary environmental character.
Located in the heart of the ZAC Plaine Saulnier (joint development zone), the purpose of the Aquatics Centre is to become fully integrated with its environment through this development project of metropolitan interest. The legal structure chosen is one of a concession. With a duration of 20 years, it will cover the design, construction, and operation of the Aquatics Centre and the pedestrian overpass.
15 May 2020, the Métropole du Grand Paris awarded this concession to the group organized by Bouygues and which includes the architects VenhoevenCS (Amsterdam) and Ateliers 2/3/4 (Paris).

The Aquatics Centre has been designed by the firms VenhoevenCS (Amsterdam) and Ateliers 2/3/4/ (Paris) to host exceptional events such as the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, but most importantly to become a major public facility open to the region. Its design relies on innovative principles of ecological building, which make it an exemplary project. The Aquatics Centre and its pedestrian overpass blend an urban strategy with an architectural gesture to advance the ecological and environmental economy. It creates a facility combining a global aura with its integration into the metropolitan landscape, breathing new life into the district of the ZAC Plaine Saulnier.
The project faces many challenges: to advance the values of Paris 2024, to be the most sustainable games in history, to be positioned facing the Stade de France, the largest sports arena in France, to be a part of a historic area in the midst of a mutation.
Thus, it represents the first step in the process of a new neighbourhood being created. Anchored in the landscape, today it is destined to write a new page in its history to the benefit of a sustainable, lively, open neighbourhood initiating social and economic dynamic for the Plaine Saint-Denis. The raised aquatic stadium is placed at the same level as the Stade de France. This sports facility serving as the platform opens to public spaces in the ZAC Plaine Saulnier. A broad ramp extends along the building from the park to the ZAC. Connected at several points, it transforms into a forecourt for the stadium and extends all the way from the pedestrian overpass at the A1 up to the plaza in front of the Stade de France. The aquatics centre, its forecourt, gardens, access ramp, and pedestrian overpass have been designed as a whole. Each of these elements possesses its own characteristics while also resonating with the others to create a single balanced and dynamic composition.
The aquatic arena possesses a streamlined silhouette imagined as a strong and compact form presenting a single unifying image. A wooden sculpture emerging from a green landscape, a symbol on the metropolitan skyline, underscores its values of sustainability. The stadium is entirely enveloped by a sunbreak of sinuous and dynamic design, creating an inviting space between inside and outside. This envelopment creates a sheltered threshold for welcoming spectators and the extension of the building’s uses - a lively forecourt providing an immense plateau dedicated to welcoming the public and directly connected to the forecourt in front of the Stade de France. The base is compact to allow room for the nature surrounding it. It communicates with the exterior spaces, allows light
to penetrate, and opens up perspectives. It is on the scale of the district and its minerality is linked to the ground. It is welcoming and allows the visitor to see the different sporting activities taking place inside the aquatics centre. Grand perspectives have been designed for the interior, which place the different spaces and activities in relation to each other.

Thus, the mixed uses are more than just the addition of functions, but rather are a vector of exchanges and encounters favouring the shared experiences, discovery, inspiration, and curiosity. Sporting events inside are displayed through the façades, but also take place outdoors. Football pitches for five-a-side games and the beach of the outdoor aquatic facilities are integrated into the landscape. The building has been designed to be as compact as possible to enable the development of a dense natural landscape. A great active ribbon of greenery surrounds the building, and is open to the public spaces. The green strategy, between a composed and a country landscape, extends all the way to the plaza in front of the Stade de France. An enormous tree is planted at the spot where the pedestrian overpass lands, as a symbol of the entrance to the new and very green district.
The pedestrian overpass linking the Stade de France and the Aquatics Centre is designed in a simple and sober style. It guides, responding to the dynamics of the whole, to create a new link, place of daily life, and passage. Its expression is governed by the structure, balanced between the two esplanades. Its formal simplicity expresses its symbolism, which is to enable two sports facilities to exist which, facing each other, form a new entrance to Paris. The built and planted elements of the project all follow the same functional, structural, and formal design logic based on a principle of harmony inspired by nature. It is from this design perspective that the entire stretched roof reached its ultimate expression. Like a leaf, the roof combines several functions in a single form: sheltering, filtering light, collecting rain water, integrating technical networks, and finally, capturing the energy of the sun to transform it into the vital energy dedicated to the needs of the aquatics centre.
The functional, technical, and spatial requirements of this roof are integrated directly into its parametric design, thereby making it possible to create a powerful and streamlined form that meets the optimal balance of these requirements. Thus, the necessary volume of the spaces in the Olympic stadium minimizes the energy used for heating and is created through a layer of wooden beams only 50 cm in height and a span of approximately 80 m, in a thin and spectacular skin. To minimize the quantity of required resources is to design the project placing the accent on life cycle optimization. Top priority is given to biosourced materials. The structure, made entirely of wood, helps to reduce a considerable amount of CO2 emissions compared with steel and concrete but also locks up CO2. This includes future reuse, and ensures that the CO2 will remain outside the atmosphere for hundreds of years. To economize on energy and water requires better consumption and also ensuring that 90 % of the energy used comes from renewable sources of energy and from recuperation; 50 % of the water consumed should be recovered and reused. Extracting value from waste products necessitates reuse by giving them a second life. All the fixed seating in the stands is made of 100% recycled plastic and collected in the region. This is designed to last and contribute to the history of the place. More than a sports facility, the Aquatics Centre is a lively place of urban living. It introduces the development of the neighbourhood, and displays the ambition of a lively, healthy, and sustainable city. Designed to last, it is there to be a future part of our heritage and will forever represent Olympic excellence.

The Aquatics Centre is far more than a swimming pool. It also doubles as a public facility, hosting competitions as well as amateur events, classes, and families. The configuration of the Aquatics Centre and the pedestrian overpass are in a communication with their environment, which they invite visitors to discover thanks to their generous public spaces.
At the intersection of major road and rail networks, positioned between the entrance to Paris and located opposite the Stade de France the site of the Aquatics Centre is already very accessible. The increased availability of access on foot and bicycle greatly enhances the quality of the sports complex and its surroundings, thereby ensuring safe, lively and welcoming spaces woven into the current green and blue grids. The upper forecourt is on the same level as the plaza in front of the Stade de France and offers views overlooking the aquatic stadium and the Olympic pool. Visitors to the major events of the Olympic Games will be able to take advantage of this space before accessing the stands.
The lower forecourt, an extension of the park that also serves the main entrance, is a reception area and a place for meetings. It is connected to the sports mall located at the heart of the future Pleyel neighbourhood.
The overpass is one of the major tools for extricating a neighbourhood from its isolation. Here, it crosses over the A1 expressway in the form of a broad footbridge. This provides calm and secure access from the forecourt in front of the Stade de France to the Aquatics Centre and the entire Plaine Saulnier. It creates a powerful, structuring axis for the developing neighbourhood. Made of lateral steel box girders, it supports a surface road also made of steel, with no intermediate support between the two plazas. Its expression is the same as its structure, balancing between the two esplanades. It embodies stability and uses simple, recognizable, and timeless forms that anchor it in a frugal and elegant style. This work forcefully and lightly crosses the A1 in a single span. Its light grey colour connects it visually with the roof of the Stade France and heralds the treatment of the exterior spaces of the Aquatic Centre. During the games, the overpass will be the means to access the aquatic sporting competitions from the Stade de France (synchronized swimming, water polo, and diving competitions in the Aquatic Centre and the large competition pool in the temporary Olympic Swimming Stadium). The entire length and width of the footbridge will be left open to facilitate the important flows of spectators.
After the Olympic Games, a new path will be proposed thanks to a landscaping project. Users will be able to take advantage of public spaces offering diverse uses. The important width of this footbridge creates a typology that makes it more like a square than a street. The goal is to create an active urban space above the A1 expressway - a densely trafficked highway - to buffer the sound, enhance the public spaces, and create sequences thanks to greenery and urban furniture.
The Aquatics Centre is a compact building that frees up important surface areas for landscaping. It is surrounded by composed and natural landscaped areas. This organization is designed to reconnect the surrounding natural areas by creating strong and active green areas for different uses: sports, relaxation, and meeting places. The approaches to the Aquatics Centre are designed as a blended landscape taking into account the challenges posed by its function as a building, and the singularities of the places among which it is placed. Relying notably on the majestic power of large trees with broad branches, large pine trees appear as totems ensuring links, and form a constellation of trees. In addition, when landscaped, the building is surrounded by lush vegetation. The perception of the building, from the different vantage points, is green first and foremost. By planting a great deal of local species, specimens already well developed, and other smaller-scale trees, the approach proposed is one of a project with a future, anchored in its territory for the duration. The choice of species is adapted to planting in the city, close to infrastructures, and echoes the vast forested landscapes of pines, oaks, maples, and rowans of the Ile de France.

Project Sheets
Aquatics Centre

Location: 361 avenue du Président Wilson, 93200 Saint-Denis
Program: For the Olympic Games, Paris 2024: Olympic pool hosting the diving, water polo and synchronized swimming competitions. For the Paralympic Games the stadium hosts Boccia.
After the Olympic games: a public facility with a 50m pool, a diving pool, a 25 m learning pool, multipurpose pool, aqua-kids area. When organizing level 1 to 4 competitions: 2.500 fixed seats and 2.500 temporary seats. Bouldering, restaurant, 3x3 basketball, fitness, 5x5 football
Client: Métropole du Grand Paris
Main contractor: Bouygues Bâtiment Île-de-France Operations: Récréa
Maintenance: Dalkia
Control office: Socotec
Architects: VenhoevenCS and Ateliers 2/3/4/
Project partners: Cécilia Gross and Laure Meriaud
Project managers: Yves de Pommereau and Tjeerd Hellinga
Landscape architect: Ateliers 2/3/4/
Project managers: Arnaud Talon et Clément Arnaud
Structural engineer: SBP Schlaich Bergermann partner Mep: INEX
Water treatment: Katène
Acoustic consultant: Peutz
Sustainability consultant: Indiggo
Economist: Mazet & Associés
Security consultant: CSD & Associés
Floor area: approx. 20.000 mq
Total cost: approx. 126 M euro
Competition: November 2018 - May 2020 Construction works: 32 months
Completion: April 2024 for the Olympic committee, Summer 2025 opening to the general public

Pedestrian Overpass
Location: between the Stade de France and the Aquatics Centre, crossing the A1 expressway
Program: Pedestrian and Cycle overpass
Client: Métropole du Grand Paris
Main contractor: Bouygues Bâtiment Île-de-France Operations: Récréa
Maintenance: Dalkia
Control office: Socotec
Architects: Ateliers 2/3/4/ and VenhoevenCS
Project partners: Laure Meriaud and Cécilia Gross
Project manager: Xavier Constant
Landscape architect: Ateliers 2/3/4/
Project managers: Arnaud Talon et Clément Arnaud Structural engineer: SBP Schlaich Bergermann partner Mep: INEX
Acoustic consultant: Peutz
Dimensions: 20 m large, 106 m long
Total cost: 21 M euro
Competition: November 2018 - May 2020
Construction works: 32 months
Completion: April 2024 for the Olympic Committee