Paris has held two Olympic Games, exactly 100 years apart. The 1924 games were the first ever to introduce an Olympic Athletes Village. The 2024 Village is more like a mini city, intended to be the most socially and environmentally yet.

1924 Olympic Village

The early editions of the modern Olympic Games, between 1896 and 1920, had no official living arrangements for athletes. Some stayed in hotels or hostels, others in schools or barracks, and some even slept in the boats they had taken to the host city.

For the 1924 Summer Olympic Games in Paris the then president of the International Olympic Committee, Pierre de Coubertin, wrote a prototype for the Olympic Village into the ‘General Technical Rules’ for ‘The Organising Committee for the Olympic Games’.

The village was required to “provide the athletes with accommodation, bedding and food, at a fixed rate which shall be set beforehand per person and per day…." (Olympic Summer Games Villages from Paris 1924 to Tokyo 2020).

The organizers built wooden huts and established an accommodation centre near the Stade Olympique de Colombes called the "Olympic Village," allowing the various world teams to stay in the same location, under the same conditions, and with common services. (Wikipedia).

2024 Olympic Village

The 2024 Olympic Athletes Village is 8 kilometres north outside ‘Central Paris’ on a 51 Ha site across three towns: Saint-Ouen, Saint-Denis and L’Ile-Saint-Denis. The area had industrial parks, businesses and very poor housing. The choice is deliberate, the intention clear: to reinvigorate one of the poorest parts of the Paris region.

Inside the Perepherique that encloses the 20 Arrondissements is considered ‘Paris’, for both tourists and old-school Parisians (2m pp). Beyond that enclosing circular motorway is ‘Grand Paris’ (10m pp) where Mayor Anne Hidalgo, and many of the left, seek to put the urban design efforts. The area is home to many migrants and refugees from Africa, vilified shamelessly by the French right.

This location is not only perfect for rehabilitation (a first priority, seemingly counterintuitively), but has high KPIs for the athletes: 60% can train within the village, 100% can train with 20 minutes of the village, and 85% of athletes are able to reach their competition venues in 30 minutes or less.

The village was masterplanned by Dominique Perrault, and is designed to be converted into a new Parisian district, served by a new Métro station designed by Kengo Kuma, with around 2,400 housing units and 119,000 square metres of additional facilities and offices after the games.

Among the many pastel-coloured residential units are individual buildings designed by several innovative studios, including a mass timber office by architecture studio Dream; apartment blocks with gridded timber and concrete structures clad with reflective terracotta tiles designed by Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés; Design offices Concepto and Studio 5.5 have also installed 350 street lights made from salvaged scaffolding poles and lampposts (Deezeen).

One failure of sustainability has been the story of air conditioning. Originally the village was to have no AC at all, but to be cooled by geo-thermal connections deep underground. But several countries, particularly the USA, harboured concerns about its effectiveness, and the possible failure leading to heat effects on athletes. They were bringing their own units.

In response the French organisers installed 2,500 AC units. Temporarily. Just until those Americans (who after all invented AC through Willis Carrier in about 1924) go home. Then they can go back to the original idea, for what looks to be a stunning innovation in social housing.

Coda: Last night, just as we were going to press, ArchDaily, the hero site for hero shots, published an excellent article on the 2024 Paris Olympic Village. Here, compare the pair.

Title image: Paris Olympic Villages 1924 – 2024. Image

Next week: Our own Olympic Athletes Villages – Melbourne (disappointment), Sydney (big disappointment), Brisbane (dissing the appointment).

This is Tone on Tuesday #222, 30 July 2024. Researched and written by Tone Wheeler, architect / Adjunct Prof UNSW / President AAA. The views expressed are his. Past Tone on Tuesday columns can be found here. You can contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com.

Tone Wheeler

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