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Architects: Agapé
- Area: 1740 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Sandro di Carlo Darsa
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Manufacturers: Archicad
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Lead Architects: Antoine Pélissier, Benoit Andrier
Text description provided by the architects. The old retirement home that the site housed in the heart of the district was demolished due to its obsolescence. The project is part of continuity by offering suitable housing for seniors, but it also includes an association room and medical offices, in order to offer to ensure a mix and proximity services to residents. Located in a residential area, it is surrounded to the south and west by dense social housing constructions from the 1960s, while to the north and east, there are pavilions. Bordered by a square, the project is therefore situated between the individual and the collective, the dense and the diffuse, social housing, and private houses.
Positioned on a slope, the land enjoys good sunshine and offers beautiful views. Its topography is complex, with a drop of more than eight meters between the top and the bottom of the terrain. By adopting a U-shaped typology, the building opens onto the neighborhood and allows visual insights. This gesture deploys a real interior garden from which residents benefit directly and also allows residents to benefit from a comfortable east-west exposure.
Taking advantage of the steep slope of the land, the two apartment buildings were treated with horizontal architecture anchored in the land to the north and raised by large cantilevers to the south. These open up the view and allow us to see the interior garden from the outside. This carefully treated garden is visible from almost everywhere. It is open to the city while preserving certain privacy in its heart, bordered by raised constructions while enjoying the beautiful sunshine.
The apartments as a whole have at least an east or west orientation towards the garden, the square of the town, and without significant vis-à-vis. They all have generous openings, some of which, to the east, are dressed in wood and are habitable, notably with benches in the sun and balcony frames. The corridors that serve them are naturally lit and extend into small terraces offering opportunities to meet without having to leave the building. The materials are simple: wood, raw concrete, and hand-molded brick.
