Date.  September 2019_December 2019_Semester 7

Location.  Prés d'Arènes_Montpellier

Type.  Collective housing_Private

Client. Unknown

Unit. Meter (m)

 

Prés d'Arènes' area is bound to be transformed and is already witnessing an ongoing urban mutation. It is a neighbourhood that has easy access to either the city centre or the city's new "hip" neighbourhoods with the 4th tramway line. It also a highway exit, which makes it very accessible and a high-traffic area. As one of Montpellier's oldest neighbourhoods, it currently benefits from a loose urban fabric animated by either pavilions or very big affordable housing projects. The contrast makes the area feel like multiple ones with a plethora of different atmospheres, urban visuals as well as social disparities. Which has inspired the concept of the "in-between", a common theme throughout the project.

"Entre-deux végétal" is an intermediary housing operation that takes place between a very busy and noisy Palavas avenue, and the smaller and quieter Maréchal Leclerc avenue. It is surrounded by individual pavilions and collective housing units, as well as some public facilities like a medical centre and a gym. It is close the city's other neighbourhoods (pedestrian paths and tramway line) and to the rest of the country (highway nearby). 

In this operation, we chose to offer a choice to the residents as there multiple types of apartments ranging from one to six bedroom apartments, benefitting from either an open ground garden or an intimate patio. The apartments themselves have each an "in-betweens" they can profit off, either it's in their internal or external organisation, such as appropriable passageways, inviting living rooms in a flatshare or a balcony where the limit is blurred.

 

Exercise instructions: think of a new collective housing on a currently abandoned plot. Group work alongside Stephen Crouzet, Célia Tadéo, Benjamin Sendra and Karim Aderab.

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