Swiss architects HHF and French architects AWP have won a competition to design a series of follies for a new park outside Paris.

The proposed pavilions include an observatory of stacked timber huts that overlooks the Seine.

Elsewhere, clusters of timber sheds will house a visitor’s centre and restaurant, while smaller follies will be scattered around the 113-hectare park.

Each pavilion will be designed around a standard module size to reduce the cost of construction.

Landscape architects Agence TER prepared the proposals for the new riverside park, which is to be located in Carrière-Sous-Poissy, north of the city centre.

HHF Architects also designed a circular pavilion along La Ruta del Peregrino, a pilgrimage route in Mexico - see the project here and see more pavillons along the route here.

See also: more stories about projects by HHF Architects.

Here's a few more details from HHF and AWP:

Carrière-Sous-Poissy
Architectures in the Parc des bords de Seine
AWP + HHF

The series of a pavilions with different public functions and programs are part of a future 113 hectare large public green space along the Seine river, in Carrière-Sous-Poissy, at the end station of the RER line A and close the renown Villa Savoye from Le Corbusier. The Park designed by the Paris based landscape architects Agence TER will be a public park and ecological showcase for local residents and a leisure destination for people living in and around Paris.

The competition brief included the construction of a visitor’s center, of a restaurant (“guinguette”), of an observa- tory plus about a dozen smaller infrastructure “follies” with different uses.

Similar to the popular wooden preschool toys in form of building blocks made of out of colorful wood, this collection of pavilions and small infrastructure «follies» is based on a modular wood system, repeating and combining different sized and different angled timber frames. This approach allows for interesting and unusual constructions, enabling a wide range of possible variations with a very limited number of elements, while at the same type staying very flexible for future adaptions and during the construction phase. This will result in unique atmospheres and spaces for each of the pavilions and infrastructure follies. In addition to that it’s a relatively low priced construction method which enables the integration of local building know how and local companies.

The site of the project is an exceptional one, for its location along the Seine river and for its “in-between”, dual nature (land/water, city/sprawl, wilderness/domesticated nature). The presence of barges, fishing huts and houseboats, which have been so far inhabiting the site has been a powerful source of inspiration. On the other side, the site boundary is characterized by suburban nondescript housing pavilions. The design springs from a process of hybridization between these two existing habitat models: the floating barge and the archetypical suburban house resulting in a new typology emerging in the park and dealing with the site’s memory and identity both spatially and socially, whilst providing a contemporary and forward-looking response.

By working along residential neighborhoods and along the river, we are invited by this project to come inhabit a large urban room worthy of Paris’ tradition of great terraced boulevards. This very active strip of land is made up of continuous docks, a large mooring space for barges, pontoons, lookouts, observatories, cantilevered terraces... These small, furtive constructions must stimulate the flow of people over the entire length of the park, and towards the water and city, as well as provide facilities for viewing the landscape: framing/unframing. They will bring an inspirational atmosphere, to encourage new experiences. We want to suggest windows for sharing this new kind of landscape, and bring the surrounding city to life by intensifying certain elements of the landscape plan: inscribe it within an urban strategy. The idea is to create conditions for viewing the space, to allow crossovers that are adapted to the buildings’ uses, users, to the evolution of their surroundings.

Location: Carrière-Sous-Poissy, Paris, France
Net floor area: 1900m2 approx.
Type of project: Public equipments. Pavilions and Follies
Planned: 2011
Client: Communauté d’agglomération des Deux Rives de la Seine Architects: AWP + HHF
Project responsible: Alessandra Cianchetta
Team AWP: Marc Armengaud, Matthias Armengaud, Alessandra Cianchetta, Miguel La Parra Knapman, David Perez
Team HHF: Simon Frommenwiler, Simon Hartmann, Tilo Herlach
Structure: EVP
Engineering / QS: GINGER
Competition: 1st prize, 2011 / preliminary studies ongoing