The project’s richness and major interest lie in the possibility of inventing an urban lifestyle set in a highly experimental framework enabling the affirmation of new ecological and contemporary architectures. The diversity of architectural propositions and communal and private spaces had to ensure and enhance this specificity. The first stage was to ‘sculpt’ the volumes in order to exploit their urban potential and intrinsic spatial qualities.

We directed our research towards a hybrid typology combining the house and the apartment. The principle underlying our approach was that of stacking containers, and careful study of habitat modes, climatic conditions and the sun’s trajectory throughout the year suggested the way to organise this. The project’s column-slab supporting structure has a system of lightweight façades providing ultra-high performance insulation levels.

The relative narrowness of the buildings dictated a strategic search for compactness. The idea of variable compactness introduced the notion of a housing unit’s adaptability to seasons and times of day. All residents have the possibility of using their exterior space as a windbreak, a mini-greenhouse or, conversely, as a means of cooling or ventilating.The morphology of each unit stems from the wish to develop housing units enabling a variety of uses very simply and with no extra technological input. We are therefore proposing cross-building units with adaptable exterior spaces and at least two different orientations.

Client: Ataraxia / Cost: € 8.1M excl. VAT / Surface: 6311 m² / Schedule: 2009 – 2015 / Team: Batiserf (Structure), LBE (M.E.P.), Michel Forgue (Surveyor), Franck Boutté (HEQ)