The residence of the athletes who will participate in the next Olympic Games received this Thursday, February 29, the visit of President Emmanuel Macron, who promised to swim in the waters of the Seine, to demonstrate his confidence that the river will be safe to receive the triathlon and the open waters.
During his inauguration speech, in which he was accompanied by the president of the Organizing Committee Tony Estanguet, Macron also praised the technological innovations and the social dimension of housing development, located in one of the most disadvantaged areas of the Parisian periphery, Saint-Denis .
The Villa has been built on 52 hectares, in what used to be an industrial complex on the banks of the River Seineat a cost of 2.2 billion dollars, less than a third of which has come from public funds.
The construction has been largely financed by real estate developers, who will then be responsible for the sale to individuals of the 2,800 apartments spread over 40 blocks and five residential areas, named after emblematic neighborhoods of Paris: Abbesses, Bastille, Dauphine , Étoile and Fêtes.
Estanguet and then Macron symbolically received the first key, but on March 1, 45,000 keys will be delivered to the Organizing Committee, although the first athletes will only begin to arrive on July 12.
In total, there will be 14,000 athletes, coaches and delegates who will stay in the Village during the Olympic Games, which will take place from July 26 to August 11, and 9,000 occupants during the Paralympic Games, from August 28 to August 8. September.
The largest apartments will have capacity for eight people, two per room, and there will be one bathroom for every four occupants.
“An example of a city of the future”
In the village, athletes will not only have the residential area. There is also a hospital, an anti-doping center, a mini water treatment plant, two saunas, a gym area with 350 machines, training centers for specific sports (weightlifting, fencing, modern pentathlon and wheelchair basketball), hairdresser, shops, restaurants and meeting places, ATMs and even a post office.
In the future, the 6,000 permanent occupants of the apartments will also have two schools in the Village area, cycle paths, an anti-noise wall to isolate residents from the noise of the nearby highway and a bridge to cross the Seine.
“Here we see the buildings that will be built in 2040, capable of withstanding the climatic conditions of 2050, both cold and heat,” said the French head of state, regarding the geothermal and natural cooling system with which the building has been equipped. the constructions, after writing the construction as “an example of a city of the future.”
The gigantic main dining room with capacity for 3,260 guests at a time is the star of this development. There, 40,000 meals will be served daily, from cuisines as diverse as Caribbean, French, Asian and African, among other gastronomic variants.
The restaurant will be linked by a bridge to another smaller dining room located in L'Ile-Saint-Denis, and there will be food trucks throughout the entire Village.
An environmentally responsible residence
The Village of Paris will take the International Olympic Committee's effort to increasingly reduce the carbon footprint of the Games one step further.
It was built with energy-saving techniques, and the buildings will generate 50% less carbon emissions than similar facilities made with traditional construction techniques, according to Nicolas Ferrand, head of the infrastructure group in charge of the work.
Furthermore, 40% of the Villa area is dedicated to gardens and parks, which are home to 9,000 trees and shrubs. Internal transportation buses will be electric and bicycles will be available to travel between buildings.
The project looks as if it were uncertain.
Demonstration that our sommes au rendez-vous des jeux olympiques et paralympiques, que la France est une Nation de bâtisseurs, le village des athlètes est prêt!
Héritage immense pour la Seine-Saint-Denis, les Franciliens et la France. pic.twitter.com/y4aLV3mZi0
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 29, 2024
The autonomous cooling system is the great innovation of the Athletes' Village, which will not have air conditioning in the middle of summer, but guarantees temperatures 6 degrees Celsius below the ambient thermal sensation inside the apartments.
High-performance insulation and awnings help keep things cool, but the secret will be in the underground channels of naturally cold water, extracted from 70 meters deep, which will circulate in the ground under the buildings.
The artificial stream is connected to a geothermal power plant that will extract cold water during the summer months and heat from underground during the winter.
But not all delegations trust the system, and some, like the United States, have requested portable air conditioning units in their apartments, just as a precaution.
The beds will be made of reinforced cardboard and the mattresses have been made from recycled fishing nets, as happened in Tokyo 2020.
But the icing on the cake will be the cleaned-up Seine, and although President Macron did not give a date for its plunge, he did highlight that reducing pollution levels in the river will be one of the long-term positive impacts of the Olympic Games.
With AP and AFP
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