Converting a disused flower market into a public library, a youth centre and a cafe
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This was my main project during my 3 year training in interior design and urbanism, on which I worked on for 6 months
I selected a building that used to be a flower market, a peninsula located at the confluence of 2 rivers, The Rhone and The Saone in the suburbs of Lyon.
I proceeded by surveying the district, a relatively new Borough risen from an industrial area, locating the appropriate building, taking into consideration the opinion and requirements of the local residents in a trendy, popular and mainly young area. A booklet was produced describing the results of my survey and submitting the outline of my project to my peers.
Historically, the building was a large flower market, (800 m2 in area by 11 m in height), a huge window (~ length 30 m and height 4 m), being its striking feature.
Professional Project
I planned to split this huge building into two separate areas, creating a library and café in one area and a youth centre in the other. The creation of the pathway separating these areas was to be the most important characteristic of my design. This, in turn, allowed me to play with the structure and texture of the walls, with natural sunlight and colours, introducing walkways, roof gardens thereby producing a wide range of sensations from outdoors.
I softened the harsh concrete structure of the huge window by lining it with teak wood to make a feature of it and finally landscaped the surrounds.
I focussed essentially on the interior design of the cafe, basing my design on a French bistro atmosphere. For the furniture, I used the typical French bistro wooden chairs (………….). The colour of the walls selected was blue in order to contrast with the warmer yellow/orange colours used in the pathway and successfully mixed 3 textures, aluminium, wood (…..) and concrete. The general scheme was blue, white and wood (I labelled the B café for blanc, bleu and bois).
