ULI France members had the great opportunity on Wednesday 12 April, to be given an exclusive tour of the construction site of the Olympic and Paralympic Athletes’ Village of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in the following locations: Saint-Ouen, Saint-Denis and Ile Saint-Denis.

The visit began around the site model in the SOLIDEO (Société de Livraison des Ouvrages Olympiques) Project House where Yann Krysinski, VP of Project management at SOLIDEO, provided detailed explanations of how the project was implemented and the challenges they faced along the way. He explained to the members the genesis, timetable, design, issues, objectives, phases, buildings, works and development works, requalifications, challenges, permit mechanisms, scenarios, financing, etc., and answered the numerous questions from members.

Following this presentation, Carine Robert and Florence Chahid-Nourai from Icade,  zoomed in on sector D Les Quinconces, and explained the project of 13 buildings.
This project is a masterpiece, with 13 buildings representing 51,700 m2 of floor spac, 3000 m² of shared core area,  that will accommodate 3,000 athletes. and in particular the low carbon characteristics, energy performance, circular economy, bioclimatic design, urban forest, use of local employment, social and usage mixes…
As soon as the Games are over, les Quinconces will turn into a real city district designed for its inhabitants and anchored in its territory.

Then the architectural aspects as well as the artistic aspects developed in the heart of the village, were shared by Anne-Mie Depuydt architect coordinator of the 6 architects who worked in the sector D.
An impressive aspect of the project is its strong commitment to respond to the social and usage mix to meet the needs of the athletes and future residents.
On top of that, it aims to meet environmental requirements. The project uses a mixed wood/concrete construction with low carbon emissions, a bioclimatic design of the buildings and the use of river transport for the evacuation of land and the supply of building materials. All of these measures were taken to meet the carbon footprint target of 740 kg of CO2.

The members, equipped with construction shoes, were then able to visit one of the tertiary sections as well as the housing units, which gave rise to very rich exchanges on the reversibility of these buildings; as well as a walk on a roof which allowed them to see the dimension of the project.

Overall, the visit was an eye-opening experience for all members. There seems to be a consensus that this project will be a game-changer, not only for the Paris Olympics, but also for the future of sustainable construction as well as this neighbourhood of tomorrow.

Many thanks to Carine Robert and Florence Chahid Nourai for organising the visit, to her teams and those of SOLIDEO (Nicolas Ferrand, Yann Krysinski and Aurélie Sabatier) as well as to Anne-Mie Depuydt for their welcome, the very rich and instructive presentations and explanations of this outstanding operation.