Salem Mostefaoui<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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a copper shell set into the slope<\/p>\n
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The design separates the program into three parts to reduce its presence on the site. The hall sits higher up, in a clearing chosen to spare healthy trees, while the foyer is rebuilt on the footprint of the existing one and expanded to receive audiences for both venues.<\/p>\n
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Dressing rooms are found upslope, along the existing access road toward the H\u00f4tel Ermitage, making the movement of musicians and instruments more direct.<\/p>\n
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Inside the 490-seat hall, the architecture follows the acoustic brief with unusual discipline. A concrete base supports the tiers and stage, while an acoustic concrete shell is lined with raw molded plaster. Around it, a technical void separates this inner room from a second shell made from timber and copper.<\/p>\n
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The outer envelope reads almost like the imprint of the sound volume inside, with pre-patinated copper tiles arranged in a scale-like pattern that will shift as the material ages among the surrounding trees.<\/p>\n
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La Source Vive sits among the trees above France\u2019s Lake Geneva beside La Grange au Lac<\/p>\n
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architecture tuned like an instrument<\/p>\n
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Acoustician Albert Xu worked with Bouchain and Chiambaretta during the design phase, guiding the volume, rake, surfaces, and materials of the hall. The final form combines an oval plan with a conical section, giving the room a volume of around eleven cubic meters per listener.<\/p>\n
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PCA-STREAM developed a digital twin of the project so the acoustic behavior could be tested through successive stages of construction, from the concrete vault to the installation of plaster, seating, flooring, and the suspended sound canopy.<\/p>\n
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The interior gives this technical process a tactile surface. Raw plaster creates the luminous envelope, with deeper reliefs at ear level to diffuse sound and finer patterns rising toward the oculus. Rose beech forms the floor and stage backdrop, while leather seats and metal details add warmth without relying on the padded absorption of a traditional concert hall.<\/p>\n
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Above, an aluminum sound canopy is made from crescent-like leaves, each one drawn and angled to guide reverberation through the room.<\/p>\n
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the copper-clad hall is half-embedded in the slope to reduce its footprint on the wooded site<\/p>\n
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daylight enters the concert hall<\/p>\n
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The oculus at the summit of La Source Vive brings natural light into a typology usually shaped around darkness. It can be blacked out for performance conditions, but during rehearsals it lets the room keep contact with the sky, the hour, and the changing weather outside.<\/p>\n
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As daylight moves across the plaster and reflects off the beech, the hall takes on a faint rose tint that stage lighting would struggle to imitate.<\/p>\n
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The approach to the room also builds a small transition between the forest and the music. Visitors move from the glazed foyer toward the half-buried hall, passing through a rock-cut passage and an ambulatory before entering the bright interior volume.<\/p>\n
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Around the building, landscape studio Coloco worked with the existing woodland, adding more than 150 trees and 200 shrubs, enlarging a pond, and using local Meillerie stone for the rockwork. The project\u2019s larger interest sits here, in the way a concert hall can be designed through listening, climate, craft, and the slow behavior of materials.<\/p>\n
![\"source](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/source-vive-philippe-chiambaretta-architecte-evian-bains-france-designboom-04.jpg\")
a glazed foyer links the new chamber hall with the existing timber concert venue<\/p>\n
![\"source](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/source-vive-philippe-chiambaretta-architecte-evian-bains-france-designboom-05.jpg\")
the outer copper envelope follows the acoustic volume shaped inside the hall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"la source vive rises above lake geneva \u00a0 On the wooded heights above Lake Geneva in \u00c9vian, France,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[40836,449,458,459,64,63,460,134,24445],"class_list":["post-779342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-architecture-in-france","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-theaters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"source](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/source-vive-philippe-chiambaretta-architecte-evian-bains-france-designboom-01.jpg\")