Location: Évian-les-Bains, France

Architects: PCA-STREAM

Area: 2,150 m²

Year: 2026

Artistic Direction: Patrick Bouchain

Lead Architects: Philippe Chiambaretta, Salomé Rigal, Sébastien Truchot and Francesco Cazzola

Acoustic Consultant: Albert Xu

Acoustic Engineering: Meta

Structural and Façade Engineering: Bollinger+Grohmann

Landscape Architects: Coloco

Photography: Salem Mostefaoui, Jean-Philippe Mesguen and SkyXpertDrone

Design Features: La Source Vive stands in woodland above Lake Geneva at Évian-les-Bains, beside Patrick Bouchain’s 1993 La Grange au Lac. Together they form the Les Mélèzes music campus. Rather than competing with the earlier hall, the new building settles into a naturally open circular clearing and is partly embedded in the slope. Its 490-seat chamber hall extends Évian’s musical legacy while supporting year-round performance, rehearsal and recording.

Sound determines the form from the outset. A circular base rises into an asymmetrical cone, while an oval plan and tiered seating around the stage combine aspects of the traditional shoebox and vineyard concert hall. Approximately 11 m³ of volume is provided per listener, and a digital twin tested reverberation, clarity, lateral efficiency and sightlines throughout the design. Acoustics is not a correction applied to a finished shape; it is one of the forces that generates the room.

Structurally, the hall is assembled like a layered instrument. A concrete base supports stage and seating, above which a concrete acoustic shell is finished internally with hand-moulded raw plaster. Beyond a technical and thermal cavity, a timber structure carries the pre-patinated copper roof. The weighty inner shell provides isolation and stability, while the lighter outer envelope responds to climate and woodland. Their distinct roles remain legible at entrances, roof edges and sectional junctions.

The interior’s defining feature is not decoration but plaster relief calibrated by height. Around ear level, undulations reach roughly 8 cm in depth and occur at intervals of about 50 cm to diffuse high and low frequencies. Higher up, they spread apart and grow finer before dissolving into daylight. Pink beech behind the stage, leather seating, concealed absorption and an operable aluminium acoustic canopy work together toward a reverberation time of about 1.8 seconds, turning the desired “warm and silky” sound into visible construction.

A circular oculus admits daylight for musicians and keeps the enclosed acoustic vessel connected to the sky. More than 150 trees and 200 shrubs enrich the surrounding woodland, while a timber-and-glass foyer links the two halls. La Source Vive therefore combines technical precision with a complete bodily sequence: entering the forest, crossing a low foyer, arriving inside a mineral shell and looking upward to natural light. Architecture becomes not a backdrop for music, but another instrument within the performance.

Design Team: PCA-STREAM was founded in Paris in 2000 by architect Philippe Chiambaretta. The practice places architectural production alongside interdisciplinary research, using its STREAM platform to connect architecture and urbanism with art, social science and environmental inquiry. Its work spans offices, retail, cultural programmes and urban transformation.

The studio develops projects through research, simulation and collaboration rather than a predetermined formal language. La Source Vive was conceived by Philippe Chiambaretta with artistic director Patrick Bouchain through two complementary approaches: Bouchain advanced intuitive experiments through material, models and making, while PCA-STREAM used digital analysis and engineering coordination to translate acoustic goals into buildable structure and detail.

The PCA-STREAM team comprised Philippe Chiambaretta, Salomé Rigal, Sébastien Truchot and Francesco Cazzola, with Alliance Engineering Creatives as executive architect. Bollinger+Grohmann provided structural and façade engineering, Meta led acoustic engineering, and Coloco designed the landscape. Acoustician Albert Xu, stage-lighting consultant Philippe Berthomé and specialist craftspeople helped align measurement, handwork and musical experience throughout the process.