Inhabited Fossil

The project was realized within the master Transformation. With the challenges of climate change, we must learn to transform the situations we have inherited. Within the programme of "Petites villes de demain" and in collaboration with the elected representatives of the department of Yonne, we worked on the theme of water to repair this territory.

The three main ideas of the project, to highlight, gather and unify, are based on the site. First, the project aims to highlight the promontory situation of the site by the management of water, by the view or by investing underused spaces. However, the topography also separates the entities present within the block. The parcel and topographical boundaries merge. In order to erase them, the project seeks to gather by a landscape and programme-based approach. Moreover, the buildings are turned towards the periphery of the site. Indeed, the accesses to the buildings are addressed to different roads surrounding the plot. The project wishes to unify its entities by creating new accesses and a common architectural language. In the residence, the inhabitants have created an association and organized themselves through it. They have at their disposal several spaces which they manage and animate. The programmes help to simplify access to care for the elderly, with the medical practice and the presence of accommodation for a care assistant. But also, it encourages intergenerational cultural exchanges and the practice of sport, with the auditorium and the dance/music school, the tennis court and the summer kitchen. The project shares certain facilities and encourages mutual aid with the laundry, repair workshops and shared gardens. The parcel becomes publicly accessible, and the programme marks a progression between public, shared and private. The public programmes are located at the main access. The shared programmes are close to the other individual and collective housing already present. Thus, they create a link between the different inhabitants. The private intergenerational housing and its common spaces are more remote, in the core of the block, to take advantage of the calm. The duplex or simplex dwellings are built into the preserved walls of the originate building, they are arranged every 6 m. The apartments are served by an unheated passageway. The project seeks to reveal the potential of the existing spaces through landscaping, architectural and social work.