Building less, better and usefully

To organise the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Paris 2024 made a commitment to use existing infrastructures or set up temporary venues whenever possible. This model ensures a stronger focus on sound stewardship and showcases France's most beautiful mnuments, transforming them into the stage for the world's best athletes to perform.

Capitalising on existing venues, throughout France

Paris 2024 is able to count on outstanding infrastructures which have already hosted the biggest international sports events so that it can build less: the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, the Roland-Garros complex in Paris, the National Velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille and the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre.

Alongside this, a number of sports facilities, required for both the competitions and for athlete training, are being renovated or modernised for the Games, with a focus on ensuring a legacy for the different areas and their communities. SOLIDEO (Société de livraison des ouvrages olympiques) is overseeing and financing these development operations.

The Marseille Marina has benefited from redevelopment work, making it possible to improve its accessibility and water quality for instance.

Installing eco-designed temporary infrastructures

Focusing on temporary infrastructures means transforming Paris’ most beautiful monuments into the stage for the sports competitions to deliver spectacular and more responsible Games: Archery and Para Archery at Invalides, Beach Volleyball and Blind Football at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, and Skateboarding on Place de la Concorde. These temporary venues offer opportunities to take sport out of the stadiums with a view to opening up the Games as widely as possible, while minimising the impact on the climate and environment compared with new-build facilities.

The temporary venues will also be fitted out in line with eco-design criteria: deploying reused or low-carbon materials, such as timber, landscaping the various spaces, using natural ventilation, etc.

Following the event, all the materials and structures temporarily installed will be redeployed, reused or recycled, with at least half in France.

The Grand Palais Overlay, set up on the Champ de Mars in Paris since 2021, has been conceived from the outset to offer a number of different uses, thanks in particular to its movable partitions. In 2024, it will host the Judo, Wrestling, Para Judo and Wheelchair Rugby competitions. Following the Games, this building will be able to be dismantled and reused for other events.

Building useful assets for the communities

Le Centre Aquatique, seul site de compétition construit pour le besoin des Jeux

The Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis is the only competition venue built specifically to meet the requirements of the Games. In a department where one in two children do not know how to swim by the time they enter middle school, Paris 2024’s project will deliver a dedicated sporting legacy for Seine-Saint-Denis and its community.

An outstanding example of low-carbon construction, the building is supported by a concave timber roof frame making it possible, through its design, to reduce the volume to be heated. It also features a more energy-efficient swimming pool, with around 20% of its electricity requirements to be covered by its photovoltaic roof, while heat recovered from the neighbouring data centre will make it possible to keep the pools at the right temperature.

The interior fittings prioritise recycled or reused materials where possible, as illustrated by the seating for the stands, made exclusively of recycled plastic using waste collected locally.

Following the Games, this multi-purpose, modular facility will welcome members of the public, school students, sports clubs and the national swimming federation, and will also be used for sports competitions.

The Athletes’ Village, a future urban neighbourhood with a more sustainable design

Building useful facilities means thinking about their legacy as of the design phase, to transition from a Village ready to welcome 15,000 athletes from around the world in 2024 to a sustainable urban neighbourhood, with housing, offices and retail spaces in 2025.

The Village, built on a former industrial wasteland site located between Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine and Île-Saint-Denis, incorporates the best environmental standards with a view to reducing the impact of its construction and adapting to climate conditions from 2050. By reusing materials and using low-carbon concrete and even timber for both structural and facade elements, the CO2 emissions linked to its construction were able to be reduced by 30% compared with a standard operation.

This is also an opportunity to test and deploy more responsible and innovative solutions for the fixtures and fittings: geothermal system for heating and cooling, wastewater treatment solution enabling reuse for watering plants, green roofs, sensors for monitoring air quality… From the outset, this project has also incorporated future uses, by choosing for instance to install modular partitions within the buildings so that the spaces can be reconfigured.

For the Games, a photovoltaic carport at the Athletes’ Village coach station and a floating solar farm on the River Seine installed by EDF will cover part of the athletes’ electricity consumption. These temporary facilities will be able to be redeployed at other locations following the event.