Toulouse ZAC Saint-Martin
The project’s location, as a gate to the future Ramassiers neighborhood to come, and in between two landscaped spaces, is the foundation of the design thinking process.
If architecture is the art of playing with the constraints, then this block is a smart composition of nowadays’ stakes.
Our goal is to create a landscaped-object that is cohesive with the surrounding greenery, as well as existing patterns and the Concerted Urban Development Zone as a whole. A preexisting dovecote has been preserved and entirely revamped, so that common spaces can be developed around this. It can work as a central link to a particular historical memory.
The project settle itself around those following principals:
_Create a green Oasis through gardens forming the heart of the block and green facades.
_Making up an innovative shape for the plot plan:
The 63 dwellings of the project are shared between six independent plots that have various heights. The two buildings, that include the collective housings, form a build-up street edge. They offer single-family homes on top of their roof, which resonate with the scale of the backyard’s smaller plots.
_Concentrate vertical circulation around one main exterior point:
Two main buildings are connected by elevated pathways, giving each apartment an access from the elevator and the shared exterior staircase. We optimize circulation area and liberate space on the ground to transform it into more common spaces to use. These saved spaces connect to the exterior of the housings.
This move allows the project to reduce the material consumption, and framing it into controlled and reasonable costs.
_Use biosourced material and sustainable constructing methods that are mastered by local businesses:
The structure is based on honeycomb bricks. The low-cost and high performance offered by this method of construction help to manage the buildings to align to a certain sustainable quality - Qualitel BBC Effinergie, Patrimoine Habitat & Environnement.
_The challenge of working with an Concerted Urban Zone – the Saint Martin du Touch Zone’s case in the West of Toulouse – intersecting various densities
Ramassiers’ District is located close to economic hubs, and business areas that try to supplement an already strong aviation activity. The whole urban zone is 160 acres, and is accessible from the Arc-en-Ciel ring road and the line C. The project emulate a highly strategic location that is in the process of gaining an attractive connectivity to the existing public network.
The West side of the project dialogue with the residential area composed of single-family homes. The program aims to align different situations (individual, medium and collective dwellings), by gradually densify the type of design along the west to east direction. The link between the two programmatic strips, residential and business areas, is made in the heart of the urban development zone, which is also the center of a large open park along the North-South axis. The continuity of a green landscape, transversal relationship of the program and neighborhood culture will deliver a great place to live and bind people through social activities on a larger scale.
The plot of the project, included in the extensive urban development zone, is establishing an entire new urban entity. The site is framed on the East by the central park and a dead-end road connecting the project to the local train station of the Ramassier. The North is where the future pedestrian path will extend, and a classified wood is outlining the South of our plot.
