Sea Passenger Terminal in Tangier {With Khalid Molato}

The Tanger Med is a passengers harbour, dimensioned for trafic increasing up to 10 million passengers/year by 2020. It is inside a general harbour masterplan for the first harbour of the mediteranean area, containing equipments and amenities for all categories of passengers and trafic. The project is founded on the very rich and strong economic and cultural interactivity linking both sides of the Street of Gilbraltar and is the occasion to assert and experiment a new and uncomplexed form of relationship between them, translated in an ultramodern terminal. The project proposes to turn the symbolic value of its subject and site into a strong but friendly architecture, concerned by its environment as well as by the confort of its different categories of users.
The project has to deal with powerfull natural elements : sea, wind, sun ; and is inserted in a site that is radical both for the bold natural beauty of its surroundings as for the violent presence of human genius ; a harbour gained on the sea and the mountains.
Therefore the architectural project is gentle : expressing in its shape the complex flux of travellers, cars, trucks and trains, protecting by its curves the migration movements from the elements. Curves of the main terminal, offering a bright and efficient shelter for queeing, check in and control ; curves of the boarding lounge, detached from the former to shorten distances and enhaunce psychological confort ; curves of the passerelles, linking amenities and ships, allowing a total protected and horizontal passengers parcours in confortable conditions. The choice of construction materials is guided by environment constraints : sea atmosphere obliges to concrete construction. Then, the building process, based on precise geometrical definition, allows generalization of precasting on site. Waterproof is realized with high resistant concrete topping, combining local craftmanship’s know-how and technology transfer.
The terminal and boarding lounge are conceived with a double shell, allowing dynamic insulation through fresh air circulation between the outer concrete shell and the inner plaster shell.
The vast parking areas easily allow to install geothermic pipes.
These two elements combined delete needs for airconditioning, assuring larger part of climate inside the building by passive ressources. Complementary energy is partly produced by the wind through equipments installed for the needs of the harbour area.
The clear interior spaces limit articial lighting. The exterior lighting deals with the presence of bird migration : uplights are strictly avoided ; the different areas are enlightened in colours choosen in the spectrum of sun dawn ; light is always close to the ground, the different colours allow easy identification of each area.

FUNCTION: Port Facilities
ARCHITECT: Odile Decq Benoît Cornette Architects with Khalid Molato
CLIENT: TMSA “Agence Spéciale Tanger Med”
CONSULTANCY COLLABORATION PARTENRS : B&G Engineering, INEX SAS Engineering, SOCOTEC International, TECTONE Internatiional, GETB Engineering, Ayda Consultancy, Louis Benech Landscape, INGEMA, CID, EADS Global Security
DESIGN DATE: 2007
COMPLETION DATE: In progress
AREA: 30 000 M2

Sea Passenger Terminal in Tangier {With Khalid Molato} by Odile Decq in Morocco won the WA Award Cycle 2. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.