117 Housing Units by LAN Architecture

Paris studio LAN Architecture have won a competition to design a residential complex for Mouvaux, France, with their design for terraced housing.

The 117 residential units will be clad in various patterns of brickwork, visually breaking the development down into smaller elements.

The project will comprise 84 social housing units and 33 private residences as well as a few shops.

The project is expected to be completed in 2013.

Below is some text from the architects:

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New constructions’ urbanization potential and their capacity to integrate the history and the morphology of the city hosting them constitute the major challenge for new built-up areas.

Our strategy takes into consideration this point and other themes as town houses, cars, definition and hierarchical organization of public and collective spaces as well as environmental quality. They are integrated into the project to produce new sustainable urban models. Analysis of uses and architecture types composing the urban morphology of Mouvaux quickly led us towards the conception of a hybrid model, an intermediate housing environment able to conjugate desire of intimacy as well as sociability.

This choice is legitimated by the scale of the constructions already composing the district and the city’s fabric. This new intervention must consider this environment.

A new urban typology

The project’s aim is to build new buildings presenting the same qualities and facilities of a single family house by adding collective spaces. We imagined several spatial systems leading to create a rich and diversified image for each program’s part.

We consider the project as an entity, where every single element has its place and a specific role in the general district’s composition. The relation between the container and the content is inverted and the new buildings become tools defining public spaces.

History and identity

Since Middle Age, inhabitants of Mouvaux were essentially dedicated to the textile industry. The new housing fronts decline patterns based on the geometrical work of the fabric. By observing attentively, it seems evident that the fabric, the “serge” and the satin always existed in the drawings of the brick of the North, and in the different ways they are displayed.

PROGRAM

Construction of 117 housing units (84 social housing units and 33 private housing units) and retails
Location:  centre ville de Mouvaux
Client:  acarat – Groupe G.H.I. – Notre Logis
Cost: €12,1 M
Timetable: 2009 – 2013