50 Modular Timber Apartments / PPA architectures

Architects: PPA architectures
Area : 1500 m²
Year : 2015
Photographs :Philippe Ruault
Acoustician : Gamba Acoustique
Roads & Utilities : MN’S Conseils
Main Contractor : Pyrénées Charpentes, Sylvain Larrouy
Environment Consultant : Soconer
Thermal : Ceercé

Text description provided by the architects. Building housing for the disadvantaged population of the northern districts of Toulouse (one of the most dynamic areas of the conurbation) is – as part of ADOMA’s insertion mission – a modest yet active contribution to the development of a more generous and mixed city.

The new construction project on the west portion of the ADOMA site necessitated a profound questioning of its organisation, including a change in the balance between built and unbuilt areas to the detriment of the latter, and consequently to the quality of use by residents.

One could indeed fear, given the size and the current configuration of the Place des Papyrus, the overall direction of the site and the technical constraints imposed by the construction of timber modules, that many homes would be facing north and overlook -or be overlooked by- existing buildings.

Aware of these constraints and aiming to make the new building «acceptable» in an urban way for existing residents and as comfortable as possible for its future residents, we suggested the chosen timber modular construction system which would achieve the following objectives:

Implanting the new building so that it positively reorganises the surrounding collective areas, especially by offering new practical and ornamental spaces replacing the existing ones.
Maintaining the uidity of domestic routes throughout the site, whilst optimising its functional organisation. This includes repositioning service and equipment facilities – mailboxes, spaces for two-wheeler parking and selective waste sorting – and reorganising means of access.
Minimising overlooking and north-oriented apartments, while ef ciently organising internal service paths, the overall compactness and the technical management of the building.

This results in a synthesis, as part of the architectural and technical project, between the inherent ef ciency of the repetitive, dense and «stackable» aspect of a modular building and the contextuality that is essential to the new building’s quality of use and «integration».
These differing objectives are successfully and closely intertwined in this project.