Apartment With The Folded and Dynamic Façade

Strazburg'un Danube ekolojik bölgesindeki Nouveau Logis de l’Est'te tamamlanan konut projesi, Rhone-Rhine Kanalı kıyılarının yeniden kente kazandırılması için hayata geçirilen projelerden biri.

The impetus for the Danube eco-district in Strasbourg grows out of the desire to take back the urban banks of the Rhone-Rhine Canal and the city’s river harbor basins. This project involving 31 apartments for the client Nouveau Logis de l’Est is composed of two volumes linked by a footbridge. The simplicity of its treatment is a reinterpretation of both Strasbourg’s local architecture codes and the ambiance of the former docks and warehouses of the port.

The location
This project is designed to serve as a pivot. The folded and dynamic form of the street façade grew out of the eclectic jumble of the surrounding built environment. On the back side, it is equally influenced by the existing buildings on the public square. Imagined with four exposed sides, the project is composed of two differentiated volumes: the first is an 8-story building overlooking the street with a 4-story building opposite, oriented toward the central square. The latter possesses an accessible roof with a green terrace with a stone solarium. A fracture splits the plot in two, making it possible to clearly signal the entrance to all the apartments on the ground floor from the street. It is straddled by private footbridges providing direct access to the apartments from below to the central hub connecting the taller building’s circulations located above. The large, partially open bicycle storage area on the building’s ground floor offers an opening onto the stone environment of the square. The taller building’s ground floor contains shops taking advantage of the busy traffic on the street.

The typologies
The variety of volumes echoes many dwelling typologies. The building facing the street has family-size apartments with broad exterior spaces, setting up private zones. The folding of the façade creates a range of viewpoints. The building opposite is composed of classic, stacked and inverted, two-level apartments, benefiting from a double-height loggia and unobstructed views of the canal.