Recycled Fish Nets And Geothermal Power: Inside The Paris Olympic Village

The athletes' village for the Paris Olympics, which welcomed its first athletes on Thursday, contains a host of innovations intended to make it a model of low-carbon construction.

Faced with concerns about the vast emissions caused by the Games -- from the construction work, the air miles and catering -- Paris 2024 organisers set out to make the village as environmentally friendly as possible.

With its roughly 40 different blocks, it was intended to be a "coherent model of the best things we can do at the start of the 21st century, even a bit ahead of time," the head of the Paris Olympics infrastructure group, Nicolas Ferrand, said earlier this year.

The 2,800 apartments will generate around half of the carbon emissions compared to equivalents built with regular construction techniques when energy savings over their lifetimes are taken into account, the Paris Games infrastructure body Solideo says.

After they have been used by Olympians and Paralympians between July 26 and September 8, the apartments will be converted into homes, with at least a third destined for public housing.

Here are some of their features:

Naturally cool

Organisers are proud of offering an Olympic village that they say does not require air-conditioning to keep residents cool, with temperatures inside set to be at least 6 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit) lower than outside in summer.

As well as high-performance insulation and sun shades, the secret is reversible underfloor plumbing linked to a local geothermal power plant that draws cool water from beneath the surface during the summer and heat from far underground in the winter.

The renewable system helps dramatically reduce operational costs and the carbon footprint of the buildings, but it has