Yacht Club de Monaco

In 2002 the Government of Monaco commissioned the practice to design a yacht club as the symbolic centrepiece of the city’s remodelled harbour front. Like a city in miniature, the building is designed to be Monaco’s sporting and social hub. It offers a strikingly wide range of accommodation to facilitate the club’s extraordinarily diverse programme, including a sailing school, rowing club, event spaces, restaurants, bars, shops and a museum. The new building celebrates Monaco’s spectacular coastline and its rich nautical heritage, creating a series of deck-like viewing terraces that step up along the harbour to offer unrivalled views out to yacht races at sea or inland over the course of the renowned Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit. Located on an area of reclaimed land alongside two newly refurbished jetties, the development extends the city’s existing marina eastwards and can accommodate a range of craft, from small children’s sailing boats to 100-metre super yachts.

A linear building, the yacht club is environmentally sophisticated. It is oriented to benefit from generous natural light and uninterrupted sea views along the glazed southern quayside façade, while the north aspect is more solid, acting as a buffer to the road. The entire south facing glazing is fully openable, with deep terraces and louvres to create temperate, shaded external spaces and to minimise solar gain inside. Accessed either from the lively new pedestrian promenade running along the quay, or by car from the roadside, the club is entered via a full-height glazed atrium that frames views out over the harbour. Solar thermal panels as well as photovoltaics complement the energy supply, while all the interior spaces are air-conditioned, using a low-energy, sea-cooled refrigeration system. The interior aesthetic is dominated by a neutral palette of sustainably resourced natural materials that resonate with the nautical theme. A spiral staircase leads up to the more exclusive areas of the club. On the first floor, are a clubroom, bar and restaurant, which open out on to a broad terrace. Above the restaurant is a ballroom, and one floor higher is an apartment for the club secretary together with a series of ‘cabins’ for visiting guests.

Along with the yacht club, the scheme also introduces shops and other public amenities at quay level that will make the harbour a lively and animated place to be. The lower floors of the building contain a rowing club and sailing school, which have full-height sliding doors that encourage activities to spread out on to the quayside. Designed largely for children, the school provides classrooms, workshops and lofts for the small Pico and Laser boats. Inland there is a new landscaped embankment park on the roof of the sailing school and nautical society. Bounded on one side by the club’s restaurant terrace and leading on the other side to a new Maritime Museum, it complements the few green public spaces in this densely populated city and forms a new link in the pedestrian route between the quayside and Casino Square.



Client: Service Des Travaux Publics de Monaco
Consultants: Roger Preston & Partners