Portfolio+CV+Nicolas+Houssais+English+2015

Nicolas Houssais selection of work 2007-2015

01

CONTENTS CURRICULUM VITAE........................................................................................................p04 ACADEMIC WORKS I- Creuset.............................................................................................................................p07 II- Perénnité.........................................................................................................................p25 III- Des Livres et des Murs..................................................................................................p39 IV- Etant du Bleu.................................................................................................................p51 V- Un Haut Lieu..................................................................................................................p57 VI- Construire......................................................................................................................p69 VII- Entre-Deux...................................................................................................................p77 VIII- De L’ame du sel..........................................................................................................p83 OFFICE WORKS IX- Social Loft.....................................................................................................................p91

02

03

CURRICULUM VITAE NICOLAS HOUSSAIS Architect DE Born in Chateaubriant, France, 24th December, 1990 24 years - Permis B +33 6 43 44 84 87 nicolas.houssais@hotmail.fr Live in 3 rue cité synthex 44520 Issé, France EDUCATION 2015: Master Degree of Architecture 2007 - 2015: ENSAB (National High School of Architecture of Britanny), Rennes, France 2007: High School Diploma (scientific section), Chateaubriant, France EXPERIENCES 2014 - 2015: Architectural Intern, Office Chark Architecture, Arzon, France 2013: Architectural Intern, Office Dreier Frenzel, Lausanne, Switzerland 2012: Architectural Intern, Office Chark Architecture, Arzon, France 2010: Architectural Intern, Office Haumont&Rattier, Chateaubriant, France 2008: Worker, DOUET, Issé, France 2008: Worker, CROSSAY, Issé, France PUBLICATIONS 2015: Review Qui ne dit mot consent #3 (Silence means consent) 2012: Review Exercices #3 (Review of National High School of Architecture of Britanny) With those experiences, I became more rigourous and organised in my work and I developped my ability to communicate with clients, workers and collegues with a specific and appropriate vocabulary. I learned also to be confronted to public and private orders and to the development of team projects.

04

05

ACADEMIC WORKS

06

07

CREUSET Revitalization of a Glassware Diploma Project Meisenthal, France 2014 Team: ThĂŠo Vachon

*Old engraving of Meisenthal Glassware

08

A creuset as the pot in refractory material containing the molten glass and also more conceptually, a melting pot. A creuset as containing and concave form: a topographic crucible as the Valley of Glass and the Crystal of Bitche Country concentrating Saint Louis and Lallique’s crystalware and Meisenthal’s glassware as the central element of the Triad. A topographic crucible as the basin in which Meisenthal and his glassware settled in 1702. The diploma project aims to structure a place in mutation which saw in 1980 ,after its closure in 1969, some glass scholars bring this wasteland back to life through the creation of a museum, an International Glass Art Center and the transformation of the big production hall into an Auditorium and Exhibition space. A creuset as an encircling form as the image of the planning of a glassware folded over on itself of which our project promotes the amplification of an existing enclosure situation, while paradoxically reconnecting glassware to its rural fabric.

A creuset as a protective entity: The enclosure as the protective case of a glass knowledge, in the context of relocation of knowledge but also strong form and meaningful object of the territory felt as progressive focus machine from territorial level to the material. A population and creation crucible as a location where various things and people mingle: an enclosure, within which a complex lamination organizes itself ; as laminated glass of Emile GallĂŠ; creating various degrees of retirement layout, from public to the most intimate and inaccessible. A Phased retirement as a necessary condition of the melting pot, cohabitation of different actors and tools of the progressive unveiling of the fusion of the material considered as sacred element of the glass cycle. A creuset as an enclosure for the melting material: A glassware with the same functions but subject to a new questioning of symbolic places and situational reflections to enhance and enrich the existing programs while adding residencies for artists and other artistic creation spaces and programs connecting glassware to its village: A garden and a library. A creuset as a trivial and insignificant object: an enclosure imbued with asceticism, representing the erasing of our architectural intervention in favor of highlighting the architectural heritage which already constitutes this industrial heart. An enclosure that fades conceptually and physically, through its role in revealing the topography of the site and its territory. A retirement coupled with a raw, ascetic and poetic materiality that plunges the site in an ascetic atmosphere favorable to artistic reflection while evoking in its renunciation an architecture that tends to disappear in favor of what it contains. Modesty, neutrality, an impoverishment of our intervention as to magnify the finely processed glass.

09

Mass Plan

10

Axonometry: Previously heterogeneous constellation of buildings subject to a programmatic and topographical chaos, glassware suffered an ordering. An enclosure binding to a founder rigor; canceling a castrating disorder and complex topography by deleting ruin and all superfluous elements; with a complex and mixed program to re-examine and new programs to integrate.

11

Near Insertion: An invitation to silence: First face to face with a protective and ascetic enclosure in an austere and raw materiality. The entrance is through an angle, after crossing a colonnade which seems to raise the existing Halle wearing a neutral concrete mass revealing traces of a Halle previously formed with two entities. A banal and simple writing made of column and wall of concrete, synonym ous with publicity and privacy, already gives a clue on destitution and introversion of glassware.

12

Plan Level 0: A new place of publicity, a first degree of retirement: A library, a public garden and an Auditorium and Exhibition space. Three strong programs for a new exhibition of this glassware, between meditation and openness.

Longitudinal Section 4-4: A public garden contemplative and meditative as slick covering of an underground public parking lot.

5

1

3

2

4

6 5

13

1. Reception of Auditorium and Exhibition space 2. Reception of Glass and Crystal Museum 3. Administration Center 4. Library 5. Underground Public Parking Lot 6. Public Garden

Perspective: Background of the Glassware, the experience of the garden generates two views. One more introspective plunges us into an abounding vegetable, while the other, aroused by curiosity, makes us see the precision of the glassmaker carving the glass. An arousal of the senses and the mind as the site’s preface.

14

Plan Level +1: A second level of retirement: a perambulation, a museum, between compression and expansion, excitement of senses and phenomenological experience. A gradual concentration and a museum path advocating the reversal of the glass process to a new understanding.

Longitudinal Section 1-1: Placed over the library, the gallery is aligned with the floor of the Auditorium&Exhibition Space and lets us catch a glimpse of the buildings in the background.

3

3 4

4

2

1

6 5

15

7

1. Glass and Crystal Museum 2. Auditorium 3. Carved Glass Workshop 4. Glassbowing Workshop 5. Administration Center 6. Gallery 7. Library

Perspective: Punctuating the museum path, the Exhibition Gallery highlights a contemporary art creation oriented towards the work of glass, in a space with a raw and neutral materiality.

16

Court Elevation on «The Anguish of Departure», Giorgio de Chirico, 1914: In the heart of the Creuset, the central void is preserved and magnified into an area of rigor and neutrality: a square court able to be transformed into a event’s court, while staging the disquieting strangeness that reigns in this place as in paintings of Giorgio de Chirico. A monumental hall and a museum of strangeness: ruins, smokestacks and a concrete porch, as a reminiscence of an industrial past.

1

17

10

«Simply isolate so absolutely from the world and things for a while, so that the most ordinary objects and events appear as completely new and unknown, which reveal their true essence». Giorgio de Chirico

Perspective: Visitors will face a gradual unveiling of the site glass’s heart, via a ramp and a set of wall’s graduation structuring the courtyard, accompanying in a slow and patient manner the discovery of architectural entities surrounding the central courtyard, focal point of the project, such as the promenade of a cloister, gradually leading its surveyor to places more and more sacred.

«This is inside that the essential happens. It does not speak, it is from the inside that it lives» Le Corbusier (about Couvent de la Tourette)

18

Plan Level +2: A third level of retirement: A space for creation, an artistic experimentation laboratory. Two new programs dedicated solely to the artist who, through it, boasts individual or group isolation areas, conducive to the development of an artistic project in relation to the glass masters of Meisenthal.

Longitudinal Section 3-3: A line of creation and artistic experimentation which connects the three stages of the artistic process: inspiration in the moulothèque, design in the laboratory and production in the glass-blowing workshop.

5 3 4

1

2

8 3

5 6

19

4

7

1. Glass and Crystal Museum 2. Auditorium & Exhibition Space 3.Creation’s Space 4.Moulothèque (place where the steel tins are kept) 5. Glassbowing Workshop 6. Administration Center 7. Auditorium 8. Artist’s rooms

Perspective: The glass-blowing workshop: a central and sacred space to which everyone converges. Between intimacy of the artist and publicity, end of the artistic line and apotheosis of the museum path. After feeling the heat from furnaces and the production’s sound during the visit, the production space offers us a look at the molten glass, a return to the essence. Like a ballet, gestures of glassmakers are staged while the artist is hiding in the distance.

20

Plan Level +4: The last level of retirement: On top of the Glass Halle and as the end of the line of artistic creation, studios split into a bedroom and a bathroom, enable artists in residence at Meisenthal to enjoy a space of ultimate withdrawal.

1

21

1. Artist’s rooms

Perspective: Ascetic and silent, the bedroom can be transformed into a creative space with the distant landscape as a backdrop.

Sleeping, washing, thinking, creating: the cell as a tower of meditation, creativity and inspiration.

22

Roof Plan: The roof as a slick covering of an enclosure with various heights. Sometimes opaque on circulation space dedicated to the museum, the garden and the artist, the roof opens as a light box frame to illuminate the two exhibition areas: the Halle and the new gallery.

Roof Section: The roof covering the Hall and the Gallery, is based on a system of concrete boxes which walls are refined to the bottom, to let penetrate as much light as possible.

23

Perspective: From inside the gallery, zenithal intake is filtered and crates appears as thin blades.

24

25

PERENNITÉ Extension of an Art School Rennes, France 2011

*View of existing court

26

Temporary, like the current extension of the School of Fine Arts in prefabricated concrete slab, in the heart of Rennes, of which the implantion in L shapes with the Music Conservatory a semi-enclosed set occupying an entire block. Perennial as the project which consists in a transplant, an operation at the heart of open block, which aim is to substitute the faulty and temporary extension while maintaining and optimizing the same functions. Perennial and massive to be maintained over time, but also respectful of the site. With its frank and similar implantation to the current extension; to not disturb the dialogue between the current frame; the project comes off the existing faรงade to better reveal it, while creating a semi-sealed enclosure, surrounding a courtyard similar to the neighboring cloister.

Perennial like raw formwork concrete symbol of permanence and mono-material of ground floor strengthening its base calling and referring to the compactness of the limestone used for the Conservatory and the Regional School of Fine Arts. Perennial as the materiality ratio between the top floor and the context of high brick buildings in which it operates. Brick is used in two ways: massive for interior walls and perforated for the walls that wraps the entire floor. Two materials and two classroom levels oppose and overlap eachothers, between opaque base without outward opening and jagged brick skin allowing light filtered through the openings of the floor classrooms and an overhead intake in patios that illuminate the classrooms on the ground floor in a crossing way. Patios that separate classrooms of both levels allow visual interaction both vertical and horizontal, while providing a breathing space outside protected from light, wind and rain for multiple scenarios of uses.

27

Mass Plan

28

Axonometry : The extension as a binder mass creating a neutral court as part of islet typology, characteristic of the neighborhood.

29

Insertion : Elongated, the extension is visually installed as base of background’s buildings.

30

Plan level 0: In plan, the staggered positioning of the 6 classrooms separated by a center aisle and patios, allows the creation of a Hall in the residual space. A tunnel allows for him, access to the center of the courtyard. The plan is laid on a concrete texture, as the only materiality used at the Ground Floor both inside and out.

3 1

5

6

5

6

6

5 7

2 4

31

5

6

5

6

5

1- Entry 2- Platform 3- Ramp 4- Hall 5- Classroom 6- Exterior Patio 7- Toilets 8- Tunnel Access

Perspective: Breathing Space, patios works as light wells flooding classrooms of the two levels, while serving as break meeting, creation or display space.

32

Plan Level +1: As the Ground Floor, the classrooms are positioned in staggered rows and separated by patios. In the North, the terrace welcomes school events while in the South, the Hall has a double height. The plan is laid on a brick texture, used as the only materiality at this level both inside and out.

3

1 2

4

4

8

3

5 7 6

3

33

3

4

3

4

3

1-Void on Entry 2-Void on Hall 3-Classrooms 4-Void on Outdoor Patio 5- Outside Terrace 6-Access Terrace 7-Void on Ground Floor 8-Coursive

Transversal section: Upstairs, a game of shifts allows the creation of a corridor in front of the classrooms. While the West rooms are reduced, in the East rooms are projected to the outside of the base which is the Ground Floor.

34

Eastern and Western Facade: The gap sets of the upper classes blocks and the creation of a double height hall leads to the creation of two different facades. The eastern facade aligns soberly to the existing facade of Fine Arts without touching, while the more irregular West facade, animates the central courtyard. In contrast to the opacity of the Ground Floor, the porosity of the brick skin, indicates the position of openings and patios.

35

36

Detail: The outer walls of the two levels are double walls with thermal insulation in the middle. Meanwhile, the perforated brick wall anchors on the concrete wall of the Ground Floor and the concrete parapet wall.

gravel gasket thermal insulation

concrete slab

void brick brick insulation

insulation against noise impact 1mm insulation separation layer floating cope with underfloor heating floor covering, glued parquet

floor concrete slab 210mm void

brick insulation concrete veil

brick

insulation

insulation

concrete slab concrete veil

concrete sole drainage

37

Perspective: Two types of walls that oppose and overlap: opaque concrete veil and perforated brick wall.

38

39

DES LIVRES ET DES MURS Library Rennes, France 2009-2010

*View of existing site

40

Freed from the walls that surround it, since 1968, the important SaintCyr religious field opens to the city of Rennes while integrating it in a sustainable manner. The enclosure in conversion, gradually becomes a space of social and generational mixity. Books and walls: A new public library as proximity equipment, becomes a new point of attraction like the Paillette’s Theater built in 1995 in the gardens below. Between backing and suspension, the project is anchored with respect on an existing stone wall, while claiming its desire to shine beyond the limitations of the site. Books and two walls partitioning vertically the internal space of the library as a reminiscence of the history of the religious field with its five hectares of land compartmentalized and surrounded by 2500 m of purple shale stone walls which allow to separate the different congregations. Books and slabs creating free trays subject to shifts, offer in addition to a visual interaction game, the experience of compression, expansion and stretching as marker and horizontal separator of movement and rest space.

41

Mass Plan

42

Insertion: A massive prism locate between a cemetery and a kiosk. A concrete porch hollowed out and evokes the public function of the equipment and invites to join a large vertical fault signaling the entrance of the Library.

43

Night Insertion: At night, the library stands out and seems as suspended above the stone wall.

44

Plan Level 0: The private areas for librarians fit into 3 enclosed areas at Ground Floor, whereas the free public spaces, wider and brighter, spread in residual space from the center. A central wall masks and polarizes public traffic.

Shaded Perspective Section: A vertical partition unbalanced by the position of a wall through the project in all its height, left: the public space, bright and spacious, right: an administrative thickness welcoming offices. In the center, a second wall, perpendicular, pierces the roof and drains the light in the library while mutating into screen to physically and visually separate areas for adults and children.

4 3

6

2 1 5

45

1- Reception and loan bank 2-Reception and Exhibition Hall 3-CD/Periodic Space 4-Meeting Room 5-Administration Office 6-Relaxation librarian

Model: At Ground Floor, the project leans on an existing stone wall. A visual and luminous constraint erased by the lifting of the library for an overhead light intake in offices. A respectful uprising that is based on secondary structure of column tensioned with the stone wall.

46

Plan Level +1: Right, the compressed administrative strip contains offices and circulation. Left, the public space subjected to a free plan is separate by the structural columns and the central wall.

Perspective: In the space reserved for children, bleachers are used a reading space and theater stage. The central wall that polarizes the course and spreads the overhead intake and bookshelves creates vertical plans that sequence and emphasize the depth and transparency of the space.

3

4

6 1

5 2

47

1- Librarian Office 2- Covered Terrace 3-Reading Bench 4-Child Reading Space 5-Adult Reading Space 6-Elevator

Shaded Perspective Section: Inside, the offset of the trays creates relief and provides four levels and the interaction between them as well as double heights below giving overhang and undermeath. The offset of the horizontal and vertical planes allows to reveal the emptiness and to create internal breathing.

48

North and West elevations: Two scales of different facade.

In the North, the size of the openings gives it the scale of a residential facade with a human scale.

49

In the West, the imposing fault of the entrance scale gives it the scale of a public building facade, as what the library.

50

51

ETANT DU BLEU Plastic Installation IssĂŠ, France 2010

*View of Existing Pond

52

Being blue in our collective imagination, water; yet colorless and transparent chemical entity has rarely in nature the color attributed to it. According to its depth or its cleanliness, water is adorned with many shades. Being brown, usually, would water ever be blue? This ephemeral installation raises the question of the color of water and its presence in a small lake with dark shades. Expanded, blue and moving, a blue cloth; material as poor as insignificant; boosts by its presence the ambiguity between our representation of water and no-movement of this pool by providing a relief-like waves. And so many variances of blue illuminating this dark water, like an incongruous mirage in this atmosphere mingling winter mist and brown ubiquitous shades, as to bring out the pond in its landscape and indicate the presence of water as the result of the water recognition test, with anhydrous copper sulfate.

53

Mass Plan

54

55

56

57

UN HAUT LIEU Tower of 100 Housing Saint Brieuc, France 2011-2012 Team: ThĂŠo Vachon

*Sketch Model with Light

58

A high and monumental viaduct accentuates the separation between the Légué’s port of Saint-Brieuc; located in valley’s hollow; and its upper town. Ups and downs that need to be connected to stem the gloom that settled in the lower town and to ensure continuity in this territory city in three dimensions of a great geographic complexity. Between up and down, the project is implanted in the west of the Viaduct, attaches itself to the viewpoint of a rich neighborhood and low place marking the end of the harbour. The binding of these two points is materialized by a city in steps carved into the rock, welcoming shops and services interspersed by public place. A high place, a housing tower is anchored on the public pedestal, as the wish of densification and signal to the city and the sea of this connection as a new point of attraction.

A leaning tower asserting itself as a vertical projection of the slope of the valley and vertical extension of the concept of town with its superposition of empty platforms welcoming a diffuse assembly of more than 100 homes inducing this desire to have one’s own house and garden. Instead of considering the cell only as a protective cocoon, it asserts itself as flexible. Going through, the housing has an opaque facade opening onto the central corridor, while the other facade fit with accordion bays, unfolds on an outdoor terrace and in the background, the sea. As the central element of the housing, the enclosed patio coupled with the closure of the external windows in winter, gives the possibility to use its terrace whatever the outside temperature. In Summer, the patio, the facade and the rooms open and the large terrace can be enjoyed as an extension of the living room to spend a night under the stars.

59

Mass Plan

60

Insertion: A leaning and incongruous tower in the landscape, depicts the slope of the valleys constituting the identity of Saint Brieuc, while for reporting and integrating the port of the city by inserting it in its skyline.

61

Transversal section: Stairs and bridges to connect different floors or two parts of one floor while enjoying a view of the funicular.

Longitudinal section: In the center, the public space makes the connection between the base and the tower piercing the housing bar and creating new centrality of equipment in connection with the port. A central funicular serves a high, a middle and a low station while stairs are creating a pedestrian link between the upper and lower town.

7

1

2 3 4

5

6

9 8

1-Parking 2-High-Station 3- Shops 4-Central-Station 5-Central Place 6-Cultural Center 7-Housing 8- Low Station 9-Parking bicycles 10-Low Place

10

62

Floor Plan: Divided into two parts, each floor is lined with homes of various types, on both sides of the two structural cores containing elevators. The remaining space is filled with service areas: supermarket, laundry,...

63

Photo model: The position of the housing provides a very porous and light tower which lets appear its structural core in the center which is also its circulation core.

64

Plan one-roomed apartment.

65

Perspective: Loggia closed.

66

Plan Three-Roomed apartment.

67

Perspective: Loggia open.

68

69

CONSTRUIRE Emergency Shelter, Scale 1 Workshops of L’Ile d’Abeau, France 2011-2012

Team: T.Chateau+C.Cher+C. Gloaquin+E. Goubot+P.Le Drézen+S.Masson+A. Phillipe+A. Quénot+E.Rondel+N.Roussel+C.Tellier+T.Vachon.

*Frontispiece of l’Essai sur l’architecture of Marc-Antoine Laugier. Engraving Charles Eisen, 1755

70

Rebuilding the city and rebuilding themself, this is the objective of the victims of the 2011 Tsunami in Japan. Building a small emergency shelter at scale 1, this is the mission that was given to us to perform in the Big Workshops of Isle d’Abeau for a week. Building an above-ground hosting structure, thermally and acoustically isolated, relying on the establishment of a natural ventilation. Building a shelter divided into two volumes: a bright greenhouse as entrance hall and an aeration space contiguous to an isolated and opaque volume containing a flexible living space for daytime and night use. Building is the outcome of any project for an architect. Building is what the Architecture student is not accustomed to. Building is to be confronted to the responsibilities of the architect, from the development of construction details to ordering materials. Building is to be confronted to the construction problems, from the use of more economical construction materials to systems that work virtually but not in the reality. Building is using our hands or hand tools or electrics tools while abandoning the mouse and the computer, too virtual to understand the interconnections of elements. Building is to consider the concept of time and delays, relying on an assembly speed.

71

Shelter on site

72

Closed plan: At night, the greenhouse is closed, as the doors of the isolated space.

Two beds can accommodate two people.

Open plan: During the day, the greenhouse and the isolated space opens and the two beds fold up against the walls.

Transversal section: The ventilation of the greenhouse and isolated space is done through the opening of the pivoting entrance door and the roof. The shelter is positioned on subtended riveted metal trusses anchored on joining of four concrete blocks. A staircase made of wood and metal and provides access to the inside.

73

Inside photo: The walls and floors are made of OSB panel and polystyrene creating a sandwich panel insulation. Fixed to the insulating walls, two pairs of doors, one opaque in OSB and another translucent in polycarbonate simply unfold with flexible hinges, and are surmounted by a structural lintel next to which a hole in the ceiling provides ventilation of the isolated space.

74

Transport Concept: To better address the problems of transport and quantity, it is expected that the sandwich panels of insulated space are foldable with hinge and that the greenhouse is sent in parts to ensure speed of installation.

Semi-exploded axonometry: The isolated space of the roof is covered with triangulated beams of different height, which are fixed on polycarbonate plates to allow a necessary tilt for the flow of water. Outside the insulating sandwich panels are covered with a sealing material.

The braced structure of the greenhouse and of the door is made using plasterboard screwed rails and riveted together and then covered with corrugated polycarbonate plate.

75

Storyboard: The various steps of assembly of the shelters.

76

77

ENTRE-DEUX Claustra, Scale 1 Rennes, France 2011

*Zoom on claustra

78

Between rigidity and flexibility, the choice of cardboard as a unique material seemed obvious to us both by its aesthetics and recyclable’s aspect and by its abundant presence in a School of Architecture. From a calepinage allowing to have the least possible loss of material and once folded and recessed on itself, the module, a square tube, acquires excellent structural qualities. Between solidity and fragility, the assembly of modules is also done by recessing, by means of a notch and languet system, common to each module. A flexible connection that allows the articulation between the elements while not using glue nor screws, nor staples. Self-held but seeming in constant imbalance, the claustrat also benefits from a solid base stemming from the interlocking of verticals tubes. Between curve and orthogonality, the claustrat stemming from the the accumulation of squared modulus, creates a self-supporting plan naturally drawing the curve of a protective cocoon of which the user is physically placed away from the outside by the thickness of the module.

Between opacity and transparency, the claustrat in an elevated position in the Hall of the Architecture de Bretagne School displays a defensive appearance in the image of a totally opaque fortified castle, whereas inside the user can glance on the outside while enjoying a filtered light.

79

Claustra on site

80

81

82

83

DE L’AME DU SEL Plastic Installation Saint Malo, France 2013-2014 Team: M.Cantin+A.Menu

*Salt Mountain on the Intervention Site

84

Salt mountains, like a mirage, reveal themselves in the heart of Saint-Malo’s Bay, in a hostile and inhospitable harbour. Echoing this slender mass, the intramural city rises above and from the ramparts, the openings allow to embrace the totality of this crystalline silhouette.

Steel blades sealed in the saline topography, sublimate and open this abandoned site by offering transparency and a new dialogue with the intramural city and the whole territory. Inspired by ramparts with framed views, this plastic installion highlights great elements of Malouin territory. On and between these metallic faults, the visitor wanders, creating a poetic look and a sensory experience of salt, previously locked and too often regarded as a mere consumer product.

85

Mass Plan

86

Perspective: The entrance of the Installation: Two metal blades planted in salt.

87

Perspective with ÂŤThe traveler contemplating a sea of cloudsÂť of Caspar David Friedrich, 1818: At the top of the salt mountains of the installation, the visitor contemplates the harbour of Saint-Malo.

88

89

OFFICE WORKS

90

91

SOCIAL LOFT Dreier&Frenzel Lausanne, Switzerland 7 Months Internship 2013

*Installation «BEHIND» by Sylvain Baumann in Dreier&Frenzel Office, Lausanne, 2013 © Eik Frenzel / Dreier&Frenzel Architecture+Communication

92

During seven months in the Dreier Frenzel’s Office, I had the chance to work on the project of the Junction’s eco-neighborhood in Geneva. This hybrid project with 300 units focused on three blocks, brings closer two forms of housing: the loft and social housing, to shape a hybrid type called «social loft» As a place of mixity, this eco-district also gathers a school, a museum depository and an underground parking lot. I mainly worked on the development of calepinage of the facades of the building FVGLS (City of Geneva’s Foundation for Social Housing). This prism of 7 levels, hollowed in the center, has four external facades and four interior facades that must be made able to move.

These moving facades consist of strip windows and balconies, each grouping only four elements of different width.

93

North Elevation Š Eik Frenzel / Dreier&Frenzel Architecture+Communication

94

95

North Elevation’s drawing Š Nicolas Houssais / Dreier&Frenzel Architecture+Communication

North façade Š Eik Frenzel / Dreier&Frenzel Architecture+Communication

96

97

Inside a typical apartment Š Eik Frenzel / Dreier&Frenzel Architecture+Communication

Inside a typical apartment Š Eik Frenzel / Dreier&Frenzel Architecture+Communication

98

Nicolas Houssais nicolas.houssais@hotmail.fr +33 6 43 44 84 87