Notre Dame reimagined with rooftop farm

Image: Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Parisian firm Vincent Callebaut Architectures has designed an energy-positive plan to restore Notre Dame cathedral, which was badly damaged in a fire last month.

Vincent Callebaut’s “Palingenesis” project envisages combining the cathedral’s stone nave, roof and spire in a continuous structure.

Image: Vincent Callebaut Architectures

The building would have a frame made from cross-laminated timber beams and pre-stressed carbon-fibre slats, which would hold stained glass. The glass itself would contain a layer of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen to absorb light and transforms it into energy, which would then be stored in hydrogen fuel cells.

The firm says the stained glass would be “subdivided into faceted diamond-shaped elements”, with the lower windows able to open to increase the flow of air. 

Image: Vincent Callebaut Architectures

The roof would host an urban farm set in planters, and aquaponic basins feeding plants with fertiliser from fish. The produce grown on the premises would be sold at a farmers’ market held every week on the forecourt of Notre Dame.

The architect says on on its website: “This powerful fire has awakened our dystopian imagination and somewhat echoed the Church’s current identity crisis, as well as the environmental challenges we are facing through climate change.  

“We seek to present a transcendent project, a symbol of a resilient and ecological future that offers Paris a set of solutions inspired by biomimicry, defined here as a common ethic for a fairer symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.”

Following the fire an inquest was launched into restoration works on spire, and international firms were invited to design a new version.