Vatea
Vatea is a nine-storey residential building on the bank of the Rhine in Huningue, the town where France, Germany and Switzerland meet. It contains 20 units, a mix of shared apartments and individual studios, for students and young professionals. The building is run as co-living open to an international community.
Nicolas Laisné architects conceived the building as a vessel moored along the river. Its wedge-shaped plan narrows to the north and ends in a rounded bow. In the lower levels the bow holds a spiral staircase, and above it a stack of terraces. Shared living, kitchen and dining areas sit at both ends of the plan, behind generous curved glazing. The shared apartments and the studios with kitchenettes fill the space between them.
Halfway up, a large terrace cuts across the building like a ship’s deck. It runs along the west façade facing the river and cantilevers over the street below. This communal level centres on a fully glazed, double-height living and dining room, with a gym and a cinema room alongside.
The structure is a concrete post-and-beam frame with external insulation. The façades are clad in corrugated metal and overlaid with a screen of slender vertical steel fins, all finished in white. The fins filter daylight and add to the building’s sense of lightness.
