Description

Housing experiments are still possible! Sophie Delhay’s housing projects are eloquent responses to the stipulations of regulations and norms and to cost constraints. Housing, she argues, must be designed to be configurable, open, flexible but also dense and uncompromisingly urban, even when developed from a “catalogue of principles” elaborated down to the last detail. Her office has made it their credo to offer every user the opportunity to shape their own environment.
The “Unité(s)” that the office completed in 2019 in the Avenue de Stalingrad in Dijon shows just what is possible within a tight budget of 1400 €/m² (base construction costs). The client was the social housing association Grand Dijon Habitat and the estate comprised 40 apartments altogether: two studios of 32 m², 12 flats of 45 m², 16 apartments of 65 m² and ten units with 78 m². Each unit has an outdoor space: a terrace, a loggia or a private entrance.
As the architect explained: “My interest was not just on developing housing typologies but also to address the aspect of personal living space, of individual space at an urban scale.” Using a 13 m² square room as the base unit, Sophie Delhay developed an entire residential ensemble. The idea was to translate an idealised concept into floor plans that each person can use and occupy as they wish. Through the use of movable partition walls to connect and separate the spaces, a constantly reconfigurable “network” of rooms can be created: spaces can be combined, clustered, or connected diagonally to allow uses to “migrate” as needed. The basic 3.60 × 3.60 m unit is the product of simple mathematics: five such units produce a three-room flat with 65 m², which corresponds to common housing requirements. The architects, however, strove to go beyond merely adding together basic modules to allow rooms to be used freely: each room can be a living room, a bedroom, a dining room, or a study. Consequently, each “unit” has the same characteristics, the same placement of connections in each room, the same window opening designed for maximum daylight quality (1.80 × 2 m to the front, 1.60 × 2 m at the rear, garden side), the same means of closure, and so on. Despite the uniformity of these elements and their arrangement within in a straightforward concrete structure of columns and floor slabs, a surprisingly complex number of permutations are possible. There are no connections between rooms; rather they are arranged to connect to a central distribution hub at the core of each unit, which additionally always receives ample daylight from a “loggia module”.
A further refinement of this system is what Delhay describes as an “inhabitable facade”, which arose as a response to the requirement of providing adequate storage space in a bedroom. The placement of a wardrobe and bed usually determines the design of such personal spaces, but when the location of the bedroom is not defined from the outset, a flexible solution is required. As Delhay explains, “wardrobes are normally placed against the back wall of the bedroom, but this would have obstructed the concept of interlinking the spaces to the central core. So I deliberately moved the storage space to the opposite side, i.e. up against the facade.” By equipping the front walls with fitted elements that surround the large, glazed window openings, the architects have made the facade “inhabitable”. At a cost of just 30 €/m² (900,000 euros in total), the fitted cupboards represented a cost-efficient solution that also creates what the architect describes as “a balance between neutrality and individual personalisation”. Towards the garden, these fittings frame the window with two cupboards either side and a chest beneath the window acting as a window seat. The windows facing the street do not feature the seat.
One year after this project, Sophie Delhay completed another social housing project in Dijon, the 32 Logements-Cathédrale, which represents a continuation of her ideas on modular design.

Originally published in Bauwelt 17.2020, pp. 38-47, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

 

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