RATTAN AUDITORIUM – JONZAC (FRANCE)

Rattan Auditorium – Jonzac convention center (France) – 2017

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Creation / Tetrarc
Design Engineering / Manufacture / Installation / Métalobil

Contracting owner / Communauté de communes de la Hautes-Saintonge

Fireproofing / Woodenha

Mechanical Sizing / BA Bois

Photo credit / Métalobil

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Rattan enables us to create organic, muscular, rippling forms. For Jonzac convention center, Tetrarc calls again for Métalobil on the subject expertise in order to design a monumental auditorium in rattan, in the shape of an acoustic ceiling.
We rework thus their original proposal readapting it to the various constraints when coming from sketch to reality; constraints regarding: material, construction system, construction site, stakeholders, mechanical sizing, scenography demands, technical paths, networks, etc.

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The theatre ceiling surface area, when developed, represents 790m². All those walls square meters are modeled with Rhinoceros 3D software, supported by Grasshoper plugin. The entire layout is composed of 7 conches divided in blocks following the common joints plans. Those blocks are then cut in 235 unit boxes made of a poplar half-timbering fireproofed plywood framework. The whole represents 3500 unique elements on which 26000 fireproofed rattan stalks are fixed.

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This designing system has been invented by Métalobil in 2003 (little salon) and repeated since. This time it has been upgraded in order to insure the perfect control of the rattan stalks sequence; those stalks are laid-out gradually continuously. Moreover, the theater will perform non amplified representations. The boxes acoustic is therefore adjusted with a plaster layer in behind to insure acoustic reverberation functions. This layer also participates to the fire behavior improvement.

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Once designed, the layout is made and assembled in boxes in our workshop; the boxes are then installed on the construction site, reconstituting the conches of the auditorium lining.

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This project represented one year of studies, laboratory tests, prototypes, and 8 months of production and installation; a testimony of the its large-scale and complexity.

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With rattan, Métalobil enables architects, artists and designers to appropriate forms that are freed from the double curvature constraints. They can thusly invent countless layouts and furniture.

Here are some other examples: Fibrille benchs / Reading area / Art school staircase / Mercure Hotel Staircase