Gisors Cultural Center: A project shaped by a difficult site

# Overview

Center by richter architectes et associés opened in 2026 on a site that had long sat at the town's edge as a car park. Under that surface lay large, polluted pre‑war industrial structures and persistent underground water, making the ground subject to flooding. Rather than removing or concealing those conditions, the architects designed a project that acknowledges and uses them to generate a new urban geometry.

# Site constraints and design approach

The site's history defined the brief. The ground was contaminated and intersected by buried industrial infrastructure and groundwater channels. Those realities limited conventional excavation and heavy foundations and raised flood risk.

# Program and spatial organization

Program metrics supplied by the project:

• Building area: 2,676 m²
• Cinema area: 1,444 m²
• Media library area: 1,232 m²

nPublic external spaces total roughly 8,000 m².

The program combines a sizable cinema and a media library, positioned to make the most of limited buildable area while freeing exterior space for public use. The relationship between building and landscape is explicit: public spaces are large relative to the building footprint, suggesting a priority on creating accessible urban space where the previous car park had been an obstacle.

# Technical coordination and consultants

Delivering the project required coordination among several specialists:

• Structural engineering: C&E Ingénierie
• Electrical engineering and fire safety: BET G. Jost
• Acoustics: Gamba
• Fluids consultant: SOLARES BAUEN HEQ
• Economist: C2Bi
• Landscaper: Bruno Kubler

The project cost is reported at €10 million excluding VAT. Materials referenced include wood and concrete. Photography by Luc Boegly documents the completed work.

# Urban effect and intent

Before the project the site acted as an urban barrier: a car park interrupting the town center and a broken element of the landscape. The new cultural center aims to invert that condition by knitting the site back into the town via a deliberate arrangement of building and public space. The architects' strategy was to expose and work with the ground's constraints so the project could create a new local geography rather than imposing a conventional footprint.

# What to look for on a visit or in images

• How the building meets the exterior public space and whether the layout suggests raised or adapted foundations to cope with groundwater.
• The material palette (noted as wood and concrete) and how those materials mediate between interior program and exterior landscape.
• The relationship between the cinema and media library volumes and how circulation organizes access through the site that was once a car park.

# Credits (selected)

Architects: richter architectes et associés Key consultants: C&E Ingénierie, BET G. Jost, Gamba, SOLARES BAUEN HEQ, C2Bi