62 Social housings at Carriére-sous-Poissy, France

The aim of this project is to integrate a “regulating element” between different scales of its urban surroundings through an environmental approach, mainly seeking to maximize the natural lighting of the apartments and to provide efficient rainwater harvesting management.

The project provides a volumetric transition between the existing housing typologies – new social housing scheme and existing urban pavilions located west. The buildings stand on a same base unifying the ground floor, which highlights the difference in treatment of façade materials in the floors, from east to west. To the east of the plot, of the four framed rectangular concrete blocks, only two buildings rise to five levels, the others do not rise over four levels. To the west, along Rue de la Chapelle, the timber framed “houses” consist of duplex apartments and do not exceed 3 levels. These little ‘’houses’’ stand out for their external skin of timber, and interact, with the detached houses located across the street, both in terms of scale and typology. They offer a contemporary reinterpretation of the archetypal, universal form of the single-family home.

Most of the apartments are dual-aspect with the living space oriented to the southeast and bedrooms to the northwest. Dwellings located on the ground floor have access to a private garden. The project has two types of terraces: green-roof terraces, on top of the apartment buildings, and private terraces for most of the housing units.