La Fraineuse

Project: La Fraineuse
Architect: BAUKUNST

Programme: Reception and polyvalent building

About: The « La Fraineuse » sports centre project includes a comprehensive landscape plan to redevelop the site’s structure, add missing facilities, and renovate existing buildings for energy efficiency. The main architectural proposal is to redesign the public reception area around the site’s historic landmark: the listed 19th-century Château de La Fraineuse.
In addition to restoring the château, the project enhances its presence by placing it on a new plinth foundation. The site’s new activities - classrooms, refectory, storage, and service areas - are grouped in a new extension aligned with the château’s base. The project leverages the site’s topography to create a new plateau connecting various existing functions. Its porous, flexible layout creates large covered outdoor spaces to accommodate the varying types of sporting activities on the site.
The project combines two distinct construction methods: organic retaining walls made of monolithic, lightweight, naturally insulating concrete that house the main interior spaces, and a regular structural roof formed from welded reconstituted steel profiles, creating a large central patio. With its distinctive infrastructure’s value, the project serves as an architectural artifact that contrasts with the surrounding natural landscape. Acting as a counterpoint to both the main valley of Spa and the listed château, the project fosters an architectural dialogue with the site’s memory and its lush, wooded landscape.