Social and political tensions are on the rise in the world and they are mainly caused by inequalities. Architecture-wise cities are an embodiment of the differences separating the poor peripheries from wealthier areas. But is it possible to find solutions?
French architecture practice LAN (Local Architecture Network) – founded by Benoit Jallon and Umberto Napolitano in 2002 – presented at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice two projects introduced by two models on display at the Central Pavilion of the Giardini.
The first model (a tower with laser cut silhouettes of people showed as they use the space in different ways – from having a party or an intimate night to a hilarious tragicomic vignette of a man curiously attacked by a urban tiger…) is represented by the Génicart district, located near the centre of Lormont and adjacent to the town's main urban and interurban network.
This area consists mainly of collective and social housing and accommodates roughly 10,500 people.
Organized around four different residences and located on the South sector of the district, the project established a residentialisation programme with buildings surrounded by a bright plaza and a playground area, a bucolic setting or a large central lawn with park benches, an ideal open green space for families.
In this way unused collective space is reduced and transformed into pedestrian areas while residents can enjoy more spaces for relaxation or meeting places between the housing groups.
The second model is represented by 79 collective housing units – the "Carré Lumière" residence (with perfect miniature replicas of design pieces such as a Charles Rennie Mackintosh chair, Pop Art posters and a wall photograph of a screenshot from Antonioni's Zabriskie Point) – in Bègles. This new, ecological and social living space, a hybrid typology combining the house and the apartment, and communal and private spaces, consists in a structure that looks a bit like a stack of container-like units destined to a variety of uses.
Each apartment can access its winter garden to increase its living area; inhabitants can do this themselves without having to obtain building permits.
In response to the growth of a family, they can add a room within a framework that has already been constructed, and they can remove it once the kids have left the house.
The bio-climatic design is halfway between the heavily insulated Nordic model and Mediterranean patio-style architecture.
The building is based on the principle of variable compactness, which introduces the notion of the housing's adaptability to the rhythm of the seasons or even of the day.
These two projects show an architecture ready to adapt to the global changes and to suggest scenarios that can help people facing today's social, ecological and economic needs and challenges.
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