The Roller Park ET City-Stade in Vincennes, France, a striking new hybrid sports facility designed by Paris-based studio Forme, represents a thoughtful answer to the challenge of integrating intense programmatic demands into a confined urban space. Located alongside the busy RER A railway line, this project is strategically set at the end of Avenue des Murs du Parc, completing a wider regeneration initiative on former railway land. The P E M B authority transformed this previously unused plot, which was originally intended for a pedestrian bridge, into a vibrant sports amenity, catering to the surrounding neighbourhoods and providing a much-needed anchor for urban wheeled sports and a multi-purpose playing court.
Bureau Forme’s design masterfully addresses the tight footprint by adopting a strategy of vertical layering. This key move places a multi-sports court three metres above the ground, aligning it with existing building frontages to extend the street’s urban sequence. The resulting bold cantilever projects over the public realm, clearly signaling the facility’s entrance and identity. Beneath this elevated structure, a unique, sheltered bowl for skateboarding and BMX riding is created—a rare and valuable facility for year-round use in the area. This innovative architecture is not just about technical surfaces, but about establishing a dynamic social landscape that invites both athletic performance and moments of pause and exchange.
Providing universal access was paramount, which led the design team to reject a costly, high-maintenance external lift in favor of an accessible ramp. This continuous, gentle path winds around the perimeter, embracing the site and becoming the unifying line of the project. As it rises, the ramp seamlessly integrates features suitable for roller skating and skatepark elements along its route. For instance, a coping bar doubles as a guardrail, while sections of the guardrail transform into a wall-ride surface, making the ascending journey an extension of the sporting experience itself and ensuring that people with disabilities can reach the upper court easily.
The elevated sports court is structurally supported by a composite timber-and-concrete Vierendeel beam, a clever technical solution chosen to meet the demands of the cantilever while keeping the ground-floor skate circulation entirely unobstructed. This emphasis on raw matter is carried through the material palette: concrete, valued for its acoustic qualities and natural synergy with wheeled activities, enters into dialogue with the lighter timber structure. A distinctive and unifying red tone is woven throughout, visually binding the project and strengthening its overall architectural design. The choice of materials, including concrete and stainless steel for durability, coupled with the timber structure, significantly reduces the project’s carbon footprint and guarantees longevity under intensive urban use.
This approach to creating an Urban Agora generates a multitude of intimate architectural moments, transforming every detail into an invitation for connection. The low walls, the stepped platform, and the ramp itself become spaces for discussion, vantage points, and gathering places. This deep engagement with the social landscape ensures the facility is not an isolated object but a living component of Vincennes’ existing community. By articulating shared viewpoints and collective practice areas, the design fosters a true sense of community, reflecting a contemporary conviction that the quality of urban space is measured by its capacity to strengthen social capital and support cohesion in a diverse society.
The project’s thoughtful integration extends to its environmental and social legacy. A retention basin, integrated into the public rain garden, ensures responsible storm-water management and contributes to micro-climatic regulation. Built on a remediated former railway site, the facility is named after Alice Milliat, an intentional gesture that anchors the project in a legacy of advocacy and equality for women’s sport. The Roller Park ET City-Stade in Vincennes, through Forme‘s civic-minded architecture, aspires to become a space of exchange and coexistence, a truly shared ground where residents, seasoned athletes, and beginners of all ages and backgrounds intermingle—making architecture a platform for collective experience.