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79 Collective Housing Units Begles | LAN Architecture

The project’s richness and major interest lie in the possibility of inventing an urban lifestyle set in a highly experimental framework enabling the affirmation of new ecological and contemporary architectures. The diversity of architectural propositions and communal and private spaces had to ensure and enhance this specificity.
Second Award | RTFA 2014 Awards
Category: Residential Concept 
Participant  Name: Umberto Napolitano
Country: France

79 Collective Housing Units Begles (2)

The first stage was to ‘sculpt’ the volumes in order to exploit their urban potential and intrinsic spatial qualities.
We directed our research towards a hybrid typology combining the house and the apartment.

79 Collective Housing Units Begles (3)

The principle underlying our approach was that of stacking containers, and careful study of habitat modes, climatic conditions and the sun’s trajectory throughout the year suggested the way to organise this.
The project’s column-slab supporting structure has a system of lightweight façades providing ultra-high performance insulation levels.

79 Collective Housing Units Begles (4)

The relative narrowness of the buildings dictated a strategic search for compactness. The idea of variable compactness introduced the notion of a housing unit’s adaptability to seasons and times of day. All residents have the possibility of using their exterior space as a windbreak, a mini-greenhouse or, conversely, as a means of cooling or ventilating.

79 Collective Housing Units Begles (5)

The morphology of each unit stems from the wish to develop housing units enabling a variety of uses very simply and with no extra technological input. We are therefore proposing cross-building units with adaptable exterior spaces and at least two different orientations.