One Monte Carlo

This mixed-use project redeveloped the site previously occupied by the Sporting d’Hiver building, located next to the Place du Casino in the very heart of Monte Carlo. Bounded by the Hôtel de Paris, the Hôtel Hermitage and the neighbouring Petit Afrique park, the old building block dominated the streetscape but offered little public access through the site. RSHP have designed a series of mixed-use pavilions creating a very permeable new city quarter that will provide high-end residential, retail and restaurant accommodation, office and conference facilities as well as an art gallery within a landscaped public realm. This key location in Monte Carlo is reasserting its historical role in the economic, social and cultural development of the Principality.

The newly created central street connects from the Hôtel de Paris to the Petit Afrique park creating an enhanced sense of place. With the aim of bringing the informal character of the park into the scheme, the new street is enlivened by rich landscaping, casual seating and vertical planting on the residential pavilion facades.

The organisation of the elegantly curved residential pavilions is modular and flexible, offering opportunity for a wide range of apartment fit-out options. A generous retractable facade system allows the interior living quarters of each apartment to transform into an external living space, also maximizing extraordinary views of the city, the Mediterranean and the mountains. Deeply recessed glazed circulation cores between each pair of buildings act to mitigate the impact of the pavilions from the massing point of view. Light wells between the pavilions allow daylight to filter into the landscaped courtyards adjacent to the conference facilities located below ground.

The locally renowned Salle des Arts from the original Sporting d’Hiver building has been reinstated as the heart of the conferencing facilities. These facilities are made up from a comprehensive suite of rooms providing a flexible multi-use amenity in a central location. The new art gallery, submerged within the Petit Afrique park, can be joined to extent these public facilities further, but is to operate as an independent destination gallery for most parts of the year.