360 Housing Units For Gendarmes

360 Housing Units For Gendarmes

360 housing units for gendarmes

Plan01

ARCHITECTS
Plan01

BUDGET
$10K - 50K

SIZE
25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

YEAR
2015

LOCATION
Pontoise, France

TYPE
Residential › Multi Unit Housing

Atypical solutions for atypical constraints.

360 Housing Units For Gendarmes
360 Housing Units For Gendarmes

How do you create architectural quality and diversity within a large-scale building complex within a short timeframe (10 months of planning, 24 months of construction) and at a building cost of 1,450 € /m² inhabitable surface area, parking included?

Following the client’s decision to use a “design-build” procedure that corresponded to the cost and scheduling issues, we had to work smartly and collectively to implement inventive strategies.

The roof terraces of the buildings are laid out to welcome mutualized outdoor spaces instead of private ones.

360 Housing Units For Gendarmes
360 Housing Units For Gendarmes

They are distinguished by thematic colors: “red-athletics” (sports, games, etc.), “blue-pool” (relaxation, children’s playground), and “green-garden” (vegetable garden, ping-pong, etc.).

The inhabitants will be able to inhabit the rooftops and most importantly, they will be able to inhabit them together.

360 Housing Units For Gendarmes
360 Housing Units For Gendarmes
360 Housing Units For Gendarmes

No illusions or fake utopias in these shared uses, as the occupants (gendarmes and their families) are used to a coherent, organized community living.

In contrast to the classic housing block that had been put forth in the initial working brief, the collective plan01 instead chose diversity and proposed a varying building height that created a skyline devoid of monotony and with multiple views.

The 5 firms that make up the collective plan01 worked side by side on this project, each one working separately on portions of the buildings that had been preliminarily assigned according to a master plan.

360 Housing Units For Gendarmes
360 Housing Units For Gendarmes
360 Housing Units For Gendarmes

In this way, each part retains its own characteristics (facades, colors, etc.) that bear the imprint of the firm that designed it.

Because the firms work together in a workshop setting, the whole of the project is carried out with a sense of cohesion, and at the same time, it contains a diversity of architectural expression that usually only time brings to the building of a city.

360 Housing Units For Gendarmes