The deep breath of the exhausted sleeper coos through the metropolis, its doors open to let out the sweet breath of the day's first batch. Through the oven glass, I saw your eyes shine with flames that would make a gratin salivate.
If not an out of the ordinary oven, the incinerator is a monumental piece of equipment whose value to the public has been adversely affected by the changing face of the city. It is nonetheless an important witness to the complexity of our contemporary relationship with waste: we prefer it out of sight, but close to our hearts, the memory of waste as a resource pulsates. Qu'est-ce qui mijote? What's Cookin', proposes to reanimate incinerators through a series of progressive interventions that take into account the complexity of the process of reclaiming and decontaminating industrial infrastructures.
Event cycle (daily) waste and their management
Drawing on the symbolism of a baking batch, the clicks of igniters and jets of butane rekindle the flame of incinerators; it all begins with the food court. This first event is an invitation to rediscover the site through the senses, around a space once perceived as toxic. The fair is the first point of access to the building, and initiates reflection on the reuse of food waste. This event initiates a targeted decontamination of the site, helping to establish a positive public perception of the incinerator. This first contact helps to anticipate its potential and generates other events that raise awareness and celebrate the oven and its waste.
Equipment cycle (building)
Once the community embraces and participates in the events, the enthusiasm for the place calls for investment in program elements related to recovery; waste sorting, organic waste collection, composting and agricultural greenhouses. Incinerators are once again waste management facilities, and waste materials are resources that play an active part in the building's metabolism. A composting center, linked to the ecocenters, transforms food waste to fertilize urban gardens, whose cultivated vegetables and fruit are used by local cooks or offered to the community.
Infrastructure cycle (the district)
Beyond the threshold of critical mass, the enthalpy of the proposal reaches its peak with the modernization of incinerator combustion systems, the recovery of biomass energy from composting and the deployment of an extensive heating network. The incinerator becomes an energy recovery and heat distribution infrastructure embedded in the metropolis' metabolism.
Toxicity as heritage: learning to coexist with a negative commonality
Once a place for processing waste, these cycles transform the site into a laboratory redefining the way we can live with waste and its management. Coexisting with waste means not just eliminating it, but reintegrating it, as a resource, into our entire systems of exchange and supply. This approach involves deconstructing our relationship with waste back to its pre-industrial state, where waste, while always present, was simple and systematically recycled or reused. By inhabiting this place, transforming it into a space for living and producing, we revise our conception of waste - it doesn't disappear, it is transformed.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
Of all the proposals submitted by up-and-coming architects, two tied for the jury's special mention for their strong, nurturing themes with universal appeal, and their reflection on the public's involvement in their program. The proposal entitled QU'EST-CE QUI MIJOTE ? approaches the site under various cycles of transformation and use of space, detailing a poetic approach to odors and the social character of food, while addressing a gradual transformation of the site. Its neighborhood-wide approach, combined with the theme of cooking by and for all, roots the new program in its site.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
3 scanned / 3 viewable
- Presentation Panel
- Section
- Axonometric Drawing
