Studio Téré Turns 1960s Signal Box into Kiosk-Bar

A 36-square-metre railway signal box from the 1960s is now a kiosk-bar at the centre of the Jardins de l'Estuaire, the new public park on the Île de Nantes, France. Studio Téré, led by lead architects Carole Pouly and Valentine Michel, completed the conversion in 2026 under the name L'Aiguilleuse. Nina Ducleux photographed the finished project.

The building belongs to the former Nantes-État railway infrastructure. In its working life, it controlled train movements entering the station. That function defined its architecture: a small, compact block positioned to give operators sightlines over the tracks.

The surrounding railway landscape has gradually disappeared. The signal box stayed behind. Studio Téré describes it as "a small but distinctive fragment of the site's industrial history" — an object the conversion sets out to preserve rather than erase.

What does the project change on the Île de Nantes?

The Île de Nantes has spent two decades shedding its industrial and logistical past in favour of housing, public space and culture. The Jardins de l'Estuaire, the park that now surrounds the signal box, is part of that shift. L'Aiguilleuse gives the park a focal point — a working kiosk-bar — inside a structure that would otherwise read as an orphan of the demolished network.

The core facts of the project:

• Architect: Studio Téré
• Lead architects: Carole Pouly, Valentine Michel
• Area: 36 m²
• Year: 2026
• Location: Jardins de l'Estuaire, Île de Nantes, France
• Photographs: Nina Ducleux

Why keep the signal box at all?

The name itself carries the argument. "L'Aiguilleuse" refers to the railway points — the switch mechanism the box once governed — and the building's original operator. Rather than demolish an obsolete 36 m² structure, the project recasts it as active public infrastructure: a small commercial unit that serves the new park daily.

The signal box's history anchors the design brief. It formed part of the Nantes-État railway infrastructure and controlled train movements entering the station. As the tracks and surrounding railway landscape vanished piece by piece, the box remained standing. Its survival is what made the conversion possible — and what gives the kiosk-bar its identity within the Jardins de l'Estuaire.

The project sits in a growing category of adaptive reuse in which diminutive industrial buildings, too small for conventional programs, become kiosks, bars and pavilions in public parks. At 36 m², the footprint demands economy; the reward is a building with an unrepeatable history and a fixed position in the memory of the site.

L'Aiguilleuse now operates where trains once ran, turning the last visible trace of the Nantes-État railway on this part of the island into a destination for the park's visitors.