Castelnau-le-Lez, France
2020
Prado Concorde
The new Prado Concorde district in Castelnau-le-Lez, set alongside the River Lez at the entrance to the town, combines collective housing with educational and retail facilities and offices in a huge urban block grouped around a valley-shaped garden.
Client
Lead architect
Program
Area
Planning
Awards
Client
Helenis (GGL Group)
Opalia
Lead architect
Valode & Pistre
Tourre Sanchis Architectes (Architect partner)
Atelier A. Garcia-Diaz (Architect urban planning)
Program
New mixed-use complex around a green courtyard: residential area (private, social, students, seniors), student campus, school, retail, offices, public parking and tramway relay.
Area
28,000 m²
143 housing units for first-time buyers
9,700 m²
107 social housing units
6,000 m²
162 student rooms
3,000 m²
79 senior housing units
3,300 m²
Planning
Competition won in 2015
Delivery
2020
Awards
Pyramide d’Argent 2019
Urban Mixed Use Award
This project encourages programmatic, social and generational diversity. The architecture of the dwellings systematically puts the emphasis on exterior extensions, to enable residents to benefit from the pleasant climate. A genuine additional exterior space of 15 m2 gives each dwelling an extra living space where everyone has their own tree, in the shelter of which they can, among other things, eat their meals.
To achieve this objective, the project makes use of an innovative concept of a large balcony whose triangular geometry with a variable section enables the strain to be taken by consoles to the right of the tree tub, this tub being incorporated into the balcony’s thickest part. This prefabricated steel caisson element is systematically placed out of alignment between one floor and the next, to allow the through-draught of air needed for each tree to grow.
In addition to the benefit of these balconies in terms of use, the interplay of their misalignments and inversions, and the combination of triangular prisms floating above one another, gives the façade movement and lightness, like the soaring of a bird.
To achieve this objective, the project makes use of an innovative concept of a large balcony whose triangular geometry with a variable section enables the strain to be taken by consoles to the right of the tree tub, this tub being incorporated into the balcony’s thickest part. This prefabricated steel caisson element is systematically placed out of alignment between one floor and the next, to allow the through-draught of air needed for each tree to grow.
In addition to the benefit of these balconies in terms of use, the interplay of their misalignments and inversions, and the combination of triangular prisms floating above one another, gives the façade movement and lightness, like the soaring of a bird.
ABC
(Autonomous Bulding for Citizens)
(Autonomous Bulding for Citizens)