The Boiler Room in Saint-Pern, Brittany Work Building, French Industrial Architecture Project Images

The Boiler Room in Saint-Pern, Brittany

20 Sep 2022

Design: ALTA Le Trionnaire – Le Chapelain

Location: Saint-Pern, Brittany, north-western France

Photos © G. Chevrier

The Boiler Room, Brittany

The new Boiler Room at Saint Pern is intended to improve the heating system of the headquarters of the Little Sisters of the Poor and the adjacent EHPAD and will be managed by the congregation.

The project is part of an existing site with a strong heritage which is solidly anchored in its location. Its emblematic Breton architecture is hidden behind the sites monumental stone walls.

This technical addition is integrated within the existing architectural and historical context and reflects the details and aspect of the older buildings.

Located in the middle of a field used partly as an orchard, it is necessary for the building to blend well with the surrounding landscape. We therefore chose to emphasize the quality and durability of the materials used as a reflection the existing elements. The example being the different types of stone namely, granite, schist and gneiss which are all omnipresent and which were sourced in the local quarry. The aspect of the stone found at the quarry of Lanhélin is to be seen in the granite of the courtyards of the Novitiate and the Chapel and is the starting point for our project. The concrete envelope of our project was then imposed on the site to dramatically respond in a form of dialogue with the surrounding architecture.

The project was developed through an enriching and constructive exchange with the Little Sisters of the Poor, leading to the choice of a contemporary architecture, a concrete volume, which recalls the heritage of the site.

The objective is to read a building which is linked directly to its heritage while also fulfilling its technical function: a single homogeneous and monolithic volume that confers an abstraction without scale capable of recalling the highest point of its neighbour, the spire of the chapel.

The design was developed, a cube surmounted by a pyramid with the use of a single dominant material, polished concrete, for both roof and facades. A subtle relief is given to the façades through the door and ventilation openings which are manifested in galvanized steel revealing the raw nature of the concrete. Their sometimes-monumental scale breaks up the overall visual impact of the building.

We made it a point of honor to conceal the buildings technical side, the wood and oil-fired boilers and even the chimneys are completely hidden in the roof space. The only thing to betray the buildings’ actual function is the white smoke curling skyward.

The implantation of the building results from a precise analysis of the existing site. In line with the Novitiate on the East-West axis and centered on the parcel on the North-South axis, its position on the site gives it its own identity and a certain religious symbolism. The huge galvanized barred gate located in the existing perimeter wall, becomes the main access to the boiler room and gives an allegorical perspective.

History
In 1856, the Rennes house of the Little Sisters of the Poor had a population of 500 people. Since it could no longer house the novitiate of the Little Sisters and the asylum for their poor, it decided to create a motherhouse that would completely separate the novitiate from the asylums of the poor.

It was in the countryside of the diocese of Rennes, a place suitable for the foundation, that they searched. In the parish of Saint-Pern, a vast property called La Tour, consisting of an old manor house (dating from the 17th century), woods, meadows and arable land, met their request.

The Little Sisters of the Poor acquired the property on January 30 in 1856, thanks to a young clergyman and two benefactors, Mr. and Mrs.

Féburier, who helped to build the novitiate. They called upon an architect to draw up a grandiose plan for them:
the general plan is a large main building flanked by four wings on each façade. In the center appears the church, a pseudo-Romanesque building, the work of the architect Jacques Mellet, consecrated in 1869. This church is composed of three naves with chapels, a vast transept with a crypt, and a pentagonal apse with an ambulatory. The square tower is flanked by turrets at its corners and is surmounted by a spire ending with the statue of Saint Joseph. The whole of this imposing monument is built in beautiful granite.

Under the direction of M. L’abbé Le Pailleur, the old property of the Tower was expanded. The draining of the vast ponds, by purifying the land, made it fertile in crops; so that this new novitiate offers all the desirable conditions of comfort and hygiene for the numerous personnel living there today
Source : Infobretagne.com – petitessoeursdespauvres.org

Design: ALTA Le Trionnaire – Le Chapelain – http://www.a-lta.fr/

Photos © G. Chevrier

The Boiler Room in Saint-Pern, Brittany images / information received 200922 from ALTA Le Trionnaire – Le Chapelain

Location: Saint-Pern, Brittany, north west France, western Europe

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