Onze04 Architecture Drapes a Textile Membrane over a Timber Sports Hall in Rural Brittany

La Bouëxière is a small commune in Brittany, the kind of place where a sports hall is also a civic landmark. The town's existing facilities, including a cultural center, a stadium, tennis courts, and a BMX track, had grown over time into a loose collection of buildings with no shared spatial logic. When the local authority decided to build a new complex capable of hosting regional competitions, Onze04 Architecture seized the opportunity to do more than fill a brief. They reorganized the entire site around a single pedestrian promenade, turning what had been a series of disconnected facilities into something resembling a campus.

The most interesting move here is the decision to split the 2,500 m² program into two buildings with fundamentally different construction logics. The multi-sports hall to the north is an unheated volume built from laminated timber and wrapped in textile membranes. The squash and dance hall to the south is a heated, insulated concrete box. This is not a stylistic choice; it is a direct response to how each space is used and how often it needs climate control. The result, completed in 2025 on a budget of €4.3 million, is a building that looks sculptural from a distance but operates with a kind of material pragmatism that deserves closer attention.

A Peaked Silhouette Against a Low Horizon

From the village streets, the building announces itself through its roofline. Four peaks range from 13 to 28 meters, an inverted double-curvature form that reads as both tent and landscape. Against the low horizon of hedgerows, utility poles, and pitched residential roofs, the white membrane silhouette is unmistakable. It is the tallest thing for blocks in every direction, yet the draped geometry keeps it from feeling brutish. The roof sags and lifts rather than simply spanning, which gives the massing a lightness that a conventional gabled hall at this scale would never achieve.

The parking lot and bare winter trees frame several approach views where the building seems to hover above the ground plane, its white surface reflecting the overcast Breton sky. The choice to make the membrane a uniform white was wise: it unifies the complex volume and avoids the visual fragmentation that colored panels or mixed cladding would introduce at this scale.

Two Buildings, Two Material Logics

The facade treatment tells you exactly what is happening inside. The northern volume, the sports hall, is clad in translucent textile membranes stretched over laminated timber frames. Ribbon windows at the base glow warmly at dusk, but the primary envelope is the membrane itself, which diffuses daylight evenly across the playing surface below. The southern volume, housing the Josephine Baker dance hall and a squash court, presents a completely different face: reinforced concrete walls with external insulation, grey paneling, and vertical strip glazing. It is deliberately heavier, deliberately opaque.

This split is the core architectural idea. The sports hall is used intermittently and does not need heating; the concrete dance hall is occupied on a regular schedule and requires a stable internal climate. Externalizing the insulation on the concrete walls preserves thermal inertia, keeping the heated rooms comfortable without constant energy input. Meanwhile, the unheated hall relies on the membrane to moderate conditions passively. Two programs, two envelopes, two construction budgets. It is a refreshingly honest approach.

The Timber Structure Inside

Step inside the sports hall and the structure becomes the architecture. Laminated timber trusses span the full width of the playing area, their diagonal members intersecting in a rhythm that is both rational and visually generous. The trusses rise to meet the four roof peaks, and where the membrane stretches between them, diffused daylight floods the interior. There is no need for banks of artificial lighting during the day. The quality of light feels closer to an overcast sky than to a sports hall, which is remarkable for a 595-seat competition venue.

The timber connections deserve a close look. Doweled joints tie diagonal braces to primary members with an elegance that suggests the design team cared about craft at the detail level, not just the diagrammatic level. Where the translucent membrane meets the timber frame, bare branches outside cast shadows across the structural members, a seasonal effect that no rendering could predict. The building is genuinely photogenic because its materials are real, not because its surfaces are polished.

Grandstands and the Central Promenade

A central promenade crosses the complex on two levels, separating the sports hall from the dance and squash building. At the lower level, it connects a public hall with social spaces and changing rooms. At the upper level, it delivers spectators directly to the concrete bleachers overlooking the playing surface. This section is handled with restraint: corrugated metal balustrades, exposed concrete treads, and the diagonal timber trusses overhead. There is nothing decorative here, and nothing needs to be.

The promenade does double duty as a spatial organizer. By pulling the two volumes apart and threading a path between them, Onze04 created a legible circulation spine that also serves as the connective tissue linking the new building to the existing cultural center, stadium, and school nearby. It terminates in a forecourt where all the site's facilities converge, a simple move that transforms the reading of the entire campus.

Ventilation Through Geometry

The four roof peaks are not just formal. They are the ventilation strategy. Hot air rises naturally toward the highest points of the membrane, where it can be exhausted through openings at the peaks. During warmer months, this convective airflow maintains comfortable conditions in the unheated sports hall without mechanical systems. The stainless steel exhaust stacks visible between the peaks are the only hardware required. It is passive design achieved through section, not through technology layered on after the fact.

A wood-fired heating plant on site supplies energy to both the new center and the existing surrounding facilities. This decision, combined with the unheated sports hall and the thermally massive dance hall, means the overall energy profile of the complex is remarkably low for a building of this size and program. The climate strategy is embedded in the architecture itself, which is how it should be done.

Plans and Drawings

The site plans confirm the organizational ambition of the project. The building sits between the existing cultural center to the east and the sports fields to the west, its footprint deliberately positioned to create a new axis of movement through the campus. The axonometric drawing reveals how the curved roof volume and the rectangular concrete wings create distinct spatial zones while sharing a unified ground plane. A southwest plot is reserved for a future secondary school, which would complete the campus loop.

The sections are where the real story is told. The inverted double-curvature of the roof creates a dramatic interior volume that peaks at 28 meters above the playing surface, while the adjacent dance hall sits at a much more modest height. The airflow diagrams in the final section drawing illustrate the convective ventilation path: air enters at low level, rises through the heated volume of the hall, and exits at the peaks. The material layering of the membrane envelope is also detailed here, showing how the textile skin is stretched and anchored to the timber frame.

Why This Project Matters

Small towns across France build sports halls constantly, and most of them are forgettable metal sheds surrounded by parking. The Josephine Baker Dance Hall proves that a €4.3 million budget in a commune of modest means does not require modest architecture. Onze04's decision to let the program's environmental demands drive the material and structural choices produced a building that is both legible and efficient. The textile membrane is not a gesture; it is a daylight strategy and a ventilation strategy. The concrete box is not a leftover; it is the appropriate response to a program that requires thermal stability.

More importantly, the project demonstrates what happens when an architect treats a site as a system rather than a plot. By reorganizing the existing campus around a promenade and a shared forecourt, Onze04 gave La Bouëxière something it did not have before: a civic center that reads as one place. The sports hall is the most visible piece, but the urban move is the lasting contribution. That combination of ambition at the site scale and precision at the detail scale is what separates architecture from construction.

Josephine Baker Dance Hall by Onze04 Architecture. La Bouëxière, France. 2,500 m². Completed 2025. Photography by Juan Cardona and Laurent Desmoulins.

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