Annette K | SEINE DESIGN

ANNETTE K, a living space dedicated to the well-being of body and mind

Paris was longing for a bathing lounging space that reminiscing the long-lost swimming pool of Deligny or the water reveries from the impressionist’s era. Being near the Seine, bathing, sunbathing and thriving through the spaces and through the day that was the appealing of the project.

Annette K, winner of the competition for the site of Port de Javel Bas in 2017, consisted of creating a place dedicated to swimming, sports, health, and conviviality. An Olympic-length swimming pool and the sports health well-being center are designed to be continuous and generous spaces allowing that a sum of different activities of different natures to take place simultaneously from morning to evening. A coffee shop, a restaurant, a spa and physiotherapists offices complete the program of Annette K. Particular attention was paid to welcoming all forms of disability, working with experts in disabled sports and adapted sports, also for the experience and access to the swimming pool – visible throughout the building and accessible under several shapes.

The Building and the Nordic swimming pool

The suspended pool seems to be placed on the barge like the hull of a life-size ketch on its base. Wood, steel and glass reinforce the feeling of shipbuilding. The building draws a fluid line on the horizon of green trees and white buildings on the right bank. The idea of a Nordic pool reinforces this feeling of living outside, between the elements (swimming under the rain, or a freezing night of winter), with a minimum of enclosed spaces in the terrace rooftop. All the heating provided by the pool is used for warming all the spaces in the lower decks.

Embracing the terrace floor, a running track creates a dynamic ring around the building providing a thinness of the edge line, and a 360° view.

The structure of the pool is in stainless steel and was imagined as of double-faced nature – receiving an Olympic sized pool from one side and being the infrastructure of the spaces of the deck, with all his structured legs spider-like supporting walls and panels or conducting electrical or plumbing. That allowed to liberate all the spaces imagined as background to the various activities to developing during the day. This infrastructure allows the possibility oy having no dropped ceiling or raised floors, everything is to be seen.

Water can be perceived through the portholes allowing light to enter through the day, combined with the reflections of the Seine. The sun shines in from all sides. The water reflections radiate, creating visual sensations close to impressionist paintings.