Context of the Project
Along the waterfront of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the old fishing port has virtually disappeared, replaced by an elegant marina. In 1974, a shipyard was built north of the downtown promenade for the convenience of boaters. Just behind it, Cros deï Pin beach opens onto a magnificent panoramic view of the coastline. At the crossroads of these areas, a sailing school occupies a public building in need of revitalization. In agreement with the municipality, this very site was selected by the Yacht Club de Monaco for its 2023 Smart & Sustainable Marina Award.
The architecture prize was awarded to Fresh Architectures and Marc Vallois, archaeologist and engineer at Semilla Maritime Solutions.
Each year, this ideas competition invites architects, students, and urban planners from around the globe to design marinas that are innovative from both an architectural and technical standpoint. As hybrid spaces bridging land and sea, marinas crystallize a host of urban, programmatic, and environmental challenges. The coastlines where they are situated are particularly fragile ecosystems, vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels, requiring developments that are finely tuned and built to endure.
For Fresh Architectures, this competition provided an opportunity to test its capacity for technical and creative innovation, while introducing a new architectural vocabulary.
Heritage and Sustainability
Despite its small scale, the site combines multiple uses and challenges. Fresh’s starting point is as follows: preserve its mixed-use program to avoid locking it into a tourism single-crop economy, limit environmental impacts as much as possible, and anticipate future transformations.
The plinth of the existing building is structurally sound, making preservation and adaptation the most sustainable approach. The sailing school, already well-rooted in the local landscape, is retained. Meanwhile, the roof is activated by a public venue—a bar-restaurant that creates spatial porosity and adds to the site’s appeal.
Surrounding this built structure unfolds a canvas sky inspired by the work of Frei Otto: a canopy of inverted umbrellas. Evoking two iconic motifs of the Riviera coastline—beach umbrellas and palm trees—these elements blend harmoniously into the seaside setting. Their fluid, flexible volumes around a regular layout follow the gentle slope of the site towards the sea, echoing the flow of the staircase.
The Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat project introduces two closed-loop water recycling systems. The first collects rainwater through the inverted umbrellas and their central columns, storing it in a cistern. The second system, adapted from technology developed for the ExoMars mission, recycles 90% of the site’s greywater.
Creative Iterations
The central question is one of transforming material. How can architecture intervene to turn sand into usable space, capture rainwater as a reserve, and host a sailing school for its young enthusiasts?
How can it complete this magical landscape through a phenomenological approach—that is, by elevating sensory experience and the user’s perception of the environment?
How might it merge harmoniously between the sand, the sea, and the urban fabric, integrating natural elements, light, textures, and the unique sensations of this site to forge a seamless continuity between the built form and the landscape?
High-Performance, Low-Carbon Materials
The materials chosen for the site take direct inspiration from the maritime context and nautical activities. They also invite us to reconsider waste—for its utility, materiality, and even its aesthetic quality.
The inverted umbrellas, crafted from recycled boat sails, evoke the site’s programming. Designed to withstand sun and weather, these fabrics offer remarkable durability and can be further reinforced with specialized treatments or filters. Their patina and marks of wear are intentionally left visible to raise public awareness about the second life of objects.
The main building’s cladding is made from driftwood—wood that has spent weeks, months, or years at sea. Using this reclaimed material is inherently virtuous, but also offers technical advantages: its salt saturation renders it exceptionally resilient.
As part of a holistic approach to coastal protection—and with sand already heavily overexploited—the use of traditional concrete is out of the question. For this reason, the building’s slab could be constructed using an innovative material such as clay cement, which carries a significantly lower environmental impact.