SIMBY // Europan 13 Competition, La Corrèze, France

SIMBY J’irai(s) dormir chez vous

la corrèze (fr) What is rural today?

The 20th century was distinguished by sprawling cities. During the post-war period, migration on an unprecedented scale allowed the emergence of huge metropolitan areas. This urban development occurred at the cost of rural areas, occupied or not. With significant growth in population and density, many rural areas were reclassified as urban zones and incorporated into the fabric of cities.

The definition of the rural thus became a concept in opposition to the metropolitan context.

Yet for three decades, rural and urban lives have become increasingly interconnected and their distinction has become blurred. With the improvement of roads and means of communication, the behavioral, social and cultural features of the urban and rural ways of life tend to become less specific and distinguishable. Today, the rural world enjoys renewed interest and attractiveness, which we see expressed in demographic stability or even slow population growth in some areas. Unlike in the past, today many of us can choose whether or not to live in a rural area. The aspirations of contemporary society are turning toward many qualities offered by rural life, and some urban dwellers are rejecting the urban lifestyle. Urban populations, businesses and policy makers look at rural areas as an area of potential competitiveness.

While agricultural and pastoral activities were pre-eminent, there has been a significant reduction in the proportion of farmers, who today number only 10% of French workers. Secondary and tertiary activities have taken over, with the establishment of many industries that need workforces, land, and raw materials. Country life has many qualities that are more difficult to find in cities: low cost of living, proximity to nature, rural culture and lifestyle, abundant open space for recreation, a healthy environment, and fresh food.

Households choosing to leave the city and move to the countryside are often referred to as ‘neo-rural’. Though potential motivations for such a move are numerous, these families also face the disadvantages of rural life. The majority of problems are due to low population density and low economic activity: long distances, isolated living, reduced labor supply, reduced choice in cultural activities and shopping, reduced choice of schools and health facilities, and reduced demographic diversity with a high fraction of retirees.

Roof canopy

Attic or Solarium

First Floor

Ground Floor

These changes in lifestyles encourage us to examine the rural life in 2015, recognizing on one hand the low density characteristic of the rural fabric and on the other hand the environmental and economic limits of residential sprawl.

How can rurality reconcile such conflicting constraints? Why and how do we want to live in the countryside? What services and social structures may offer an attractive living environment without inflicting the effects of isolation?

How can we attract ‘neo-rural’ populations and promote age diversity without fracturing the existing social fabric? How can we diversify a primarily residential economy through tourism by using local knowledge and new communication technologies?

For legitimate reasons, the ideal of home ownership runs deep in French culture.

Our approach takes into account this desire and does not dispute it. Individual housing offers space, privacy, and potential for ownership, and has great capacity to adapt to the needs of the occupants. Many homes in rural areas also offer picturesque charm. This homeownership ideal is being undermined because it requires consumption of natural spaces and costly, environmentally unfriendly infrastructure.

Typology For the project La Corrèze, we propose a typology that preserves many qualities of individual homes while densifying the residential fabric by using areas of 250 to 500 square meters. This typology is a paradigm in between the isolated house and the row house. In this proposal, the dwelling comprises several individual houses attached to each other. Four houses are arranged back-to-back, each opening onto their private garden. To avoid shared walls, which force inhabitants to share noise and damage, a collective and protected courtyard creates a buffer space between houses.

The courtyard has practical as well as social benefits. First, it is the main point of access to each house. This is a configuration that makes a clear transition between public, semi-public and private spaces, with the garden as the highlight.

This space is enclosed by a greenhouse, providing a simple thermal buffer. Protected from the weather, heat and cold, this in-between space becomes a patio shared by the residents of all four homes. Everyone is free to use it together or individually, to relax, to eat, to tinker, to play. This cohabitation of several households is less complicated than in an apartment building, which may contain dozens of homes. It becomes an asset for neo-rural residents seeking to establish a new social network.

A pleasant meeting place in the commons.

Ground Floor Plan.

First Floor Plan.

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la corrèze (fr) Stay & Share Cohabitation The major disadvantage of rural life is the low population density, which restricts the supply of jobs, services and cultural activities. Allowing several households to live close by while preserving their privacy promotes collective mutual aid and the building a residential community.

Rural areas do not offer public transportation like that cities -- does this mean that parents must each take their children to all school and extra-curricular activities? Not if a neighbor next door is driving the same route. Individual housing often requires repair work by homeowners -- does that mean that everyone must own tools they may use only a few times a year?

Flexibility & Handicapped accessibility (PMR) Rural inhabitants can be very different and have very contrasting lifestyles, ranging from farmer, workers, retired baby boomers, young families and newcomers from the city. However, the low rural density does not permit specialized housing types for each of these cases, putting property developers at the risk of not being able to sell or rent their entire units.

To answer this, we develop a residential typology that is extremely flexible and also in accordance with housing and particularly regulatory standards for Disability Access (PMR). Each level of the house is relatively autonomous, allowing greater flexibility of use. A secondary entrance to the floor allows occupants to articulate the spaces according to their needs. The house becomes a place where one can install an office, a workshop, new members of the family, guests passing through, or even tourist visitors.

One of the major obstacles to rural facility is the difficulty of access to employment and limited economic resources. Today this constraint tends to be minimized by new communication technologies. The Internet is becoming an asset to the rural world, where low installation costs and low rents are competitive advantages for business creators and freelancers. This house can also be arranged for tourist accommodations, such as a bed and breakfast or for AirBnB guests. This potential is effective because it allows young families or retirees to have additional income, be in contact with other people and have an extra bedroom for when family and friends visit.

Simby Inspired by the term NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), those residents perpetually opposed to any local development, we propose the term SIMBY (Stay In My Back Yard or Shared In My Back Yard). The SIMBY, those who want to stay in their garden, illustrate many aspirations of contemporary society. Compared to the economic, environmental and personal cost of long commute times, working from home allows a better quality of life than the much-criticized ‘metrowork-sleep’.

Capable Structure

Construction is traditionally effective when the raw materials are produced locally. Wood is one of the main wealths of the Corrèze. The widespread use of this building material can not only minimize the difficulties of design but also connect with the cultural and landscape heritage.

The project implements a simple and efficient timber structure that creates both support for equipment as well as an urban-style grid that can serve as a buffer area between public and private space by becoming summer kitchen, a patio, or a winter garden. Repeating the construction offers architectural coherence to the district.

Section on the structure that becomes a promenade, Turenne.

A qualitative public space surrounded by family houses in Argentat.

Axonometrical view of a typical mixed neighborhood.

Section on the structure that becomes an open stage, Ussel.

Section on the structure that becomes a Farmer’s market, Argentat.

la corrèze (fr)

Turenne Turenne Station and the main road RD8 should not be obstacles to the development of a new district below the historic town and its castle.

The Europan site provides a rich landscape heritage that must be preserved. To this end, the housing is concentrated and much of the site is left open. In continuation of the existing housing around the station, a new neighborhood of households is located in the hamlet. The relatively dense ground plan offers sixty homes that would have direct access to the station through a bridge. As described above, these houses could offer tourist accommodation in private homes.

On the other side of the site, a raised park creates public space in the middle of nature.

The Turenne guard tower looms in the background of the landscape. The quality of these natural public spaces is available to both new residents and old, and thus allows for social cohesion to evolve through exchanges there.

Ussel The steep terrain at the southern entrance of the town center suggests an organization inspired by the natural topography, characterizing a northern zone and a southern area of the plot. The mall becomes the skeleton of the neighborhood, allowing a public path through the plot.

The existing buildings, namely a medical center and new housing at the old market hall, can create a simple and effective centrality from the first phase of intervention.

The implementation of 44 housing units allows densification of the center-borough neighborhood. An alternative to both townhouses and blocks of collective housing, these are individual or group homes, each with its generous garden.

Argentat The urban layout and configuration of this public space offers the opportunity for true centrality in the image of the artisanal markets of the 19th century. The central public square is encircled by the ‘capable’ wood structure. The flexibility of this structure allows for the hosting of fairs and festivals or the creation of showrooms that highlight regional expertise.

Useful for both exhibition and creation, like a fab lab, old and new craftsmen can locate themselves where the structure grows to become an enclosed hall. This building is able to accommodate larger events as a weekly market or village festival. The place is obviously accessible to slowly-moving vehicles, and thus also allows trucks to service the production and work areas.

The 24 households are organized around this central square and can participate fully in the local commerce. These units have the ability to dedicate the ground floor to a professional or commercial activity.

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