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Architects: MDR Architectes
- Area: 5315 m²
- Year: 2012
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Photographs:Stéphane Chalmeau
Text description provided by the architects. The project is located in the western outer rim of the town, next to the A7 freeway in the Petite Garrigue neighborhood. The environment on the Eastern front all along the Paul Guigou boulevard is scarcely populated with a few isolated apartment buildings.
The 58 living units are spread out into 4 distinct buildings each with 15 living units. The implantation of these buildings optimizes the topographic specificities of the landsite. In fact, their exact implantation is located at the height of the embankment, keeping them at a nice distance from the street. The buildings are directly accessible from the boulevard by pedestrian lanes between the buildings in order to access the gardens and green areas. An inside private roadway connected to the boulevard by the southern end of the site enables the cars to access the building site by its western rim, out of the freeway. This roadway also keeps the A7 outer rims at an additional distance, since it is bordered with trees. This road distributes the accesses to the split-level car parks planned under each building. Alongside this private roadway, plants and bushes form a line alongside the facades with private outside parking spaces for visitors. The space located between each building front offers a view on the gardens planted above. Accessible ramps connect to the pathways leading to the building entrances and back to the sidewalks of the Paul Guigou boulevard.
Each of the four building is unique. The implementation of textured cement boxes and openings vary from one building to the next. We wanted this characteristic to “break” the repetitive visual effect and for the residents to self-appropriate their living area. This differentiation is furthermore underlined by a color code allowing the identification of each unit from afar. The inside of the loggias as well as the technical walls and welcome areas on the street front are in bright colors, from orange ocher to anis green thus sublimating the whiteness of the facades.
The building facades also change colors with the various contrasts of the daytime and nighttime ballet of shadows and lights thus creating various raised designs thanks to the differences in volumes, but also to the various depths of the loggias and the slanted walls.
