The secrets of the Paris 2024 Olympic Village: three thousand apartments, an underground refrigeration system and a 24-hour restaurant for the 10 thousand athletes

Just under five months before the start Paris 2024THE Olympic Village which will be the home of the athletes during the Games in the French capital. Located near the Stadium of Francewhich will host the athletics competitions, on a 52-hectare plot between Saint-Denis, the island of Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen, north of the host city, this sort of “private neighborhood” is made up of 82 condominiums with a special feature: they do not have air conditioning.

With the aim of organizing the most sustainable Games in history, the organization opted for special technology that uses natural resources to keep athletes cool, even in the event of a heat wave.

In addition to having designed the buildings by orienting the facades so that they do not receive too much sunlight in summer, Paris will use an underground cooling system, already used over the years Louvre museum during the summer of last year to mitigate the scorching temperatures recorded in Europe. This will ensure that the temperature in the apartments does not exceed 26°C at night.

Laurent Michaud, the director of the Villa, said that the tests were carried out in the rooms on the highest floors and most exposed to the sun, with very positive results. “Despite the outside temperature reaching 41°C, in most of these rooms we recorded temperatures of 28°C,” explained Michaud.

Furthermore, he assured that the organization will have portable air conditioning systems available to install in case it is not possible to keep temperatures low or if the health or well-being of the athletes requires it.

The Villa, which took seven years to build, has 3,000 apartments and 7,200 rooms. It will also have recreational areas, 7.5 hectares of green spaces and promenades on the banks of the Seine.

Athlete amenities will include a 24-hour restaurant with nearly 3,200 seats, serving dishes from six culinary specialties, including Italian, Asian and French; an alcohol-free bar; a supermarket; a police station; a beauty salon; A gym; a post office and a multi-denominational worship center. And a polyclinic that would also work all day and all night.

Athletes will be able to move around the field with bicycles or electric vans which will circulate constantly.

Once construction is complete, the organizing committee will now have five months to arrange the furniture, decorate the units and prepare everything before the scheduled arrival date of the first athletes on July 18.

“The Villa is an example of the city of the future. Here we see the buildings that will be built in 2040, capable of withstanding the climatic conditions of 2050, both cold and hot”, commented the French president, Emmanuel Macronwho during the opening ceremony handed over a symbolic key to the complex to the head of the organizing committee, Tony Estanguet.

“They can be proud. They kept their promises, both in terms of deadlines and budget,” Macron added. “We are a country of builders and despite the Covid crisis, two years of inflation, the war in Ukraine, we have completed the largest project in France in record time.”

He also underlined the innovation of the materials used, which allowed a 47% reduction in polluting emissions during the construction phase.

The Village is the largest project built from scratch for the Paris Games, as most of the competition venues will be existing structures which, at most, had to be renovated for the event. It was built with an investment of 646 million euros of public funds by the French government, plus the contribution of the largest French real estate companies, who developed several areas of the property.

After the Olympic Games and Paralympics (from August 28 to September 8), the building complex will become a new modern city. Of the 2,800 apartments, a third will be sold to private individuals, a third will be used for social housing and the rest will be rented.

The area in which the Villa was installed is an industrial area, one of the poorest and with the highest crime rate in mainland France, but the new buildings, which stand out for their diversity of colors and designs, promise to revitalize it and transform it into a residential area.

“Without the Games all these homes that will remain would not have been created,” Macron said. “The Games create inconveniences in the years of preparation, but they leave a legacy and create wealth in the territory.”

With information from EFE