Type: Invited competition
Location: Cenon, France
Brief: Housing (38 rental apartments), commerce, parking
Sustainability standard: RT 2005–20%
Client: Foncière Logement
Developer: ING Real Estate Development
Area: 6,852 m²
Phase / Status: Built
Architects: Habiter Autrement (lead architect) / Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Mia Hägg, Sandrine Forais / Jean Nouvel

Project managers: Sandrine Forais, Elise Camus
Architectural consultant: Jean-Jacques Raynaud
Team members: Mathilde Jauvin, Aimée Lau, Félix Medina, Louis Mangin, Nicolas Métro, Marcel Züger
Competition team members: Pawel Krzeminski, Lina Lagerström, Kasia Jackowska, Noélie Sénéclauze
Landscape (AJN): Ewen Le Rouic, Irène Djao Rakitine, Céline Aubernias
Graphics: Natalie Saccudefranchi
Consultants:
Sustainability (HQE): Franck Boutté, Transsolar (competition)
Structure: Khephren Ingénierie
Facades: DVVD
MEP: LBE fluides
Cost consultant: Georges Ventre
Technical inspection: Socotec

Photographer: Philippe Ruault
Interior views by courtesy of Mr Foix-Sauret
CENON
Housing and commercial facilities
Special mention Agora Architecture Prize

Cenon has a typical suburban form of disparate housing blocks spread out over a flat territory, but on an early visit to the site, Habiter Autrement found a beautiful umbrella pine tree growing there, and the idea of making a pine wood became the starting point of the project. The wood creates a specific environment to which the building form can relate and, when full-grown, the trees will help to create a pleasant distance between apartments, giving their inhabitants the feeling of being in their own park.

The apartments are spacious, around 150 m2, and long, about 30 m. The building’s E-shape gives half of the apartments a triple orientation.
To the south, foldable glass walls open to loggias with thick rectangular railings. The undersides of the loggias and the railings are tinted with a gradation of bordeaux reds, creating an abstract linear pattern on the south facade. On the north facade, winter gardens are enclosed by vertical glass panels of varying transparency, a reference to French ateliers d'artiste (artist’s studios).

On the lateral facades, which face the courtyards, the primary focus is the pleasure of colours and reflections. The interior of the window shutters are painted in white, yellow and orange, and the stainless steel cladding reflects the bright colours and the changing sunlight. The roof terrace is covered with vegetable gardens for each resident.

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Type: Invited competition
Location: Cenon, France
Brief: Housing (38 rental apartments), commerce, parking
Sustainability standard: RT 2005–20%
Client: Foncière Logement
Developer: ING Real Estate Development
Area: 6,852 m²
Phase / Status: Built
Architects: Habiter Autrement (lead architect) / Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Mia Hägg, Sandrine Forais / Jean Nouvel

Project managers: Sandrine Forais, Elise Camus
Architectural consultant: Jean-Jacques Raynaud
Team members: Mathilde Jauvin, Aimée Lau, Félix Medina, Louis Mangin, Nicolas Métro, Marcel Züger
Competition team members: Pawel Krzeminski, Lina Lagerström, Kasia Jackowska, Noélie Sénéclauze
Landscape (AJN): Ewen Le Rouic, Irène Djao Rakitine, Céline Aubernias
Graphics: Natalie Saccudefranchi
Consultants:
Sustainability (HQE): Franck Boutté, Transsolar (competition)
Structure: Khephren Ingénierie
Facades: DVVD
MEP: LBE fluides
Cost consultant: Georges Ventre
Technical inspection: Socotec

Photographer: Philippe Ruault
Interior views by courtesy of Mr Foix-Sauret
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