Brise-Vent Havre Harbor Museum – DiveAscent

The Brise-Vent Havre Harbor Museum revitalizes a disused harbor structure into a contemporary cultural institution, re-establishing maritime heritage as an active component of public life rather than a preserved artifact. The project is positioned within a broader inquiry into how industrial waterfront heritage can be adaptively reused to support cultural continuity, urban regeneration, and long-term sustainability.

The design preserves the original harbor building as the primary historical layer while introducing a new architectural intervention that extends the existing curved roof into a sweeping canopy. This gesture retains the building’s iconic roof as a symbol of its industrial past, while transforming it into a spatial device that mediates between land, water, and public use. The extended canopy draws from the rhythmic movement of ocean waves and the fluid motion of a swimmer diving and ascending—an architectural sequence that gives rise to the project’s name, DiveAscent. Rather than functioning as a purely symbolic form, the canopy organizes circulation, frames public space, and establishes a continuous dialogue between historic fabric and maritime context.

Beneath the extended roof, a sequence of semi-open spaces unfolds, including a sheltered public courtyard and a new waterfront pier. This configuration enables multi-modal access to the museum, allowing visitors to arrive by foot, urban circulation, or directly from the water. By reintroducing water-based arrival, the project reactivates the harbor edge and repositions the museum as a connective urban hub rather than an isolated destination.

At the center of the project is a 24-hour publicly accessible courtyard, conceived as an open civic forum that remains active beyond museum operating hours. This continuous public space encourages everyday use, informal gathering, and social interaction, embedding cultural heritage into the rhythms of daily life. Through this strategy, heritage is transformed from a protected object into a lived urban node—one that supports both collective memory and contemporary social exchange.

Internally, the museum accommodates flexible exhibition spaces, social platforms, and panoramic terraces overlooking the harbor. These spaces support exhibitions, education, performances, and informal cultural events, allowing the program to adapt over time. The architectural organization emphasizes openness and permeability, ensuring that cultural activity extends beyond enclosed galleries into shared public environments.

Sustainability is integrated as a spatial and lifecycle strategy rather than a technical overlay. Adaptive reuse significantly reduces embodied carbon by retaining the existing structure, while the extended canopy provides passive shading and facilitates cross-ventilation driven by prevailing sea breezes. Courtyard openings and roof apertures introduce daylight deep into interior and lower-level exhibition spaces, reducing reliance on artificial lighting. Seasonal vegetation further moderates microclimatic conditions, ensuring long-term usability of the public realm.

By combining minimal and reversible intervention with continuous public access, the Brise-Vent project demonstrates how industrial waterfront heritage can be transformed into resilient cultural infrastructure. The project offers a repeatable model for integrating heritage preservation, public space, urban mobility, and environmental performance—contributing to ongoing discourse on adaptive reuse and cultural architecture at both urban and disciplinary scales.