Description

The Cité du Grand Parc is a large-scale housing estate north of Bordeaux’s city centre comprised of typical 1960s slab blocks and high-rise towers containing a total of 4000 apartments. Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal with Frédéric Druot and Christophe Hutin were commissioned to upgrade 530 apartments by adding a new extension, resulting in the docking-on of a total of 1200 prefabricated concrete modules. This extensive programme represents a new development of the architect’s strategy for renewing such buildings through the addition of space. This systematic enlargement of the floor plans is also their answer to the urgent need for urban redensification.

The project for the Cité du Grand Parc is a response to the widely acclaimed building policy analysis conducted by Lacaton & Vassal twelve years prior, which they published in their manifesto PLUS – Les grands ensembles de logements – Territoires d’exception (in 2012 the subject of an exhibition at the DAM German Architecture Museum). Their study protested against the then French government’s policy of demolishing and replacing state-funded social housing in a state of disrepair. For the architects, this project therefore represented an opportunity to demonstrate the sustainable potential of renovation and refurbishment, not just as a cost-efficient method but also socially and in terms of energy use. Every single dwelling, so the architects, has the potential for optimisation, even in a most minimal form.

Very little time was available for implementing the renovation measures and the residents would have to remain in their apartments. In addition, the cost of the works was not to exceed 45,000 euro per unit. The existing building – two 15-storey slab blocks with 225 units each above a base level and smaller 11-storey slab with 80 units – exhibited the typical characteristics of plain facades punctuated only by small indented balconies.

The core element and catalyst for rethinking the existing structure was the conservatory. This intermediary space presented not only a way of making the boundary between indoors and outdoors permeable but also of making large expansive openings in the blocks. With a depth of at least 2.80 metres, the conservatories are spacious and extend up to a length of twelve metres along the rooms of the apartments. Consequently, they become a mechanism that changes the way the residents relate to their living surroundings and also their habitual living patterns. The conservatories convey the sense of freedom and idea of expanded living that the architects were aiming to achieve. They not only increase the size of the apartments but also serve as a climatic buffer zone. The additional space is used quite differently: for some it is a place to relax or to grow plants, for others a place for dancing, for improvised dining, for conversation or for retreating to with a good book. They are large enough to accommodate a variety of different kinds of seating: from carpets and cushions on the floor to sofas, bar stools or recliners.

From the conservatory, residents have a new view of their surroundings, often with a gentle breeze, without having to sacrifice the comforts of a compact regular apartment. Each resident can regulate the degree of privacy and openness according to their needs by sliding the transparent panels or drawing the curtains to protect against heat and sun. It is the residents rather than the facade that dictate their relationship to the outside world, to the street, the city and the other residents. They can quite literally take “their own four walls” into their own hands to determine the degree of light and heat, and to regulate how subdued or bright, and how cool, airy, open or closed-off the apartment should be. This sense of openness, both inwards and outwards, also has much to offer in terms of energy performance, which is especially significant when one considers that many of today’s standardised apartments are hermetically sealed with only a few small windows offering a connection to the outside world.

In 2019, the project Cité du Grand Parc was awarded the prestigious European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.

Originally published in Bauwelt 39.2016, pp. 38-47, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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