THE EPILOBS

Project

304237

Status

Submitted

Award category

You want to submit

NEW EUROPEAN BAUHAUS AWARDS: existing completed examples

Project title

THE EPILOBS

Full project title

Description

"The Epilobs" project consists of the construction of 84 social housing units, divided into 7 buildings set on stilts with heights varying from R+2 to R+6, allowing a volumetric transition with the neighbouring blocks.
Built in raw concrete, these masses of varied forms touch the common spaces with a field character and are naturally connected to the Mussonvile park, a real urban forest.

What was the geographical scope of your project?

Does your project address mainly urban or rural issues?

Does your project refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations?

Has your project benefited from EU programmes or funds?

Has your project won an EU prize?

Your project is fully completed?

When was your project implemented?

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes ?

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?

Please provide a summary of your project

"The Epilobs" project is divided into 7 buildings, built on piles with heights varying from R+2 to R+6.
The buildings located at the extremities of the site have a maximum height of R+3, allowing for a volumetric transition with the neighbouring blocks. The greatest heights are found on the central buildings which are furthest from the two public roads.
The buildings "taking height" and being "lifted off the ground" free up views "under the building and between buildings" towards the Mussonville park. The four blocks located inside the plot are accessible from four "green totems", which integrate the vertical circulations. The dwellings all have orientations that allow them to have optimal sunlight. A large proportion of the homes are through- or dual-oriented and include generous loggias.
The entire project is built in unfinished concrete. The railings with an expanded metal filling are galvanised steel. These materials reinforce the raw aspect of the project.
The majority of the parking (car and two-wheeled vehicles) is integrated into the building's right of way.
Tapestry plants, trees and bushes protect the edges of the structures and channel pedestrian traffic towards specific areas: two-wheeled premises, entrance hall, play areas, household waste collection points, access platform for emergency vehicles.

 

Please indicate the main themes of your project with 5 key words

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of sustainability (including circularity) and how these have been met.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context

Ecology is inseparable from architecture and architecture is inseparable from ecology. Today, it is even unthinkable to think of architecture without talking about ecology.
Both architecture and ecology share the notion of respect: respect for the human being, the occupant, the inhabitant, the user, nature, light, the earth and resources.
The architect must therefore be respectful, honest and humble. If he deviates from this obvious path, he unfortunately risks deviating from architecture.
"The Epilobs" project in Bègles is in line with this thinking by touching nature without denaturing it and by dialoguing with it, by touching the ground without damaging it, by using simple forms so as not to disfigure the landscape, by using materials without altering them, by offering the inhabitants generous, luminous, comfortable and affordable interior and exterior spaces.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience beyond functionality and how these have been met.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context

« The Epilobs" project is a new way of living in the city. It is a simple and rational volumetry that offers additional space to the inhabitants. It is generous, double-facing housing with comfortable double loggias that allow residents to enjoy a private outdoor space at any time of the year.
These are links between common and private spaces with a real architectural value: from the arrival at the residence to the door of the dwelling, the inhabitant or visitor will cross a succession of varied spaces where light, vegetation and minerals follow one another, transforming a simple journey into a real walk.
Finally, there are generous outdoor communal spaces where there is a succession of paths, clearings where children can play, and an urban forest where everyone can stroll, cross paths and meet.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of inclusion (equal opportunities, public participation, citizen engagement, co-design, universal design, accessibility, affordability, etc.) and how these have been met.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context

In order to carry out "The Epilobs" project, we had a dialogue with the City of Bègles, the project owner DOMOFRANCE, and the project management team for the development of the Bègles eco-district.
The municipality wished to retain some control over its new district. Presentations were organised and prototypes were produced in order to inform the progress of the project.
The project owner's objective was to offer affordable housing to people wanting to buy a home for the first time. During the construction phase, on-site meetings were organised to present the progress of the project to future residents.
"The Epilobs" was the last project of the eco-neighbourhood located on the edge of the forest park "le parc de Mussonville". The urban planner of this new piece of town asked us to respond to this project in a singular way, mixing forest and habitat to mark the end of this great construction site.
Finally, "The Epilobs" also meant giving a voice to light, orientation, space, time and nature. Our dearest wish was to be able to offer comfortable, spacious, bright, affordable, low-maintenance and low-energy housing, and above all to recreate an unbreakable link with nature.

Please explain how these three dimensions have been combined in your project.
Please highlight how this approach can be exemplary

« The Epilobs" is a sustainable, honest, simple, precise, unpretentious, obvious, affordable, low-energy and low-maintenance project that opens up a new dialogue between mineral and vegetation, between interior and exterior, between public and private.

Please give information on the results/impacts achieved by your project in relation to the category you apply for

« The Epilobs" project in Bègles is located on the edge of the Mussonville park. This park, with its many trees, is located near Bordeaux and plays a real role as a lung for the Bordeaux metropolis. This new operation had to respect this place by trying to dialogue with it. The landscape designers worked hard to find local species in order to recreate a piece of forest, a piece of plant life accessible from all the surrounding public spaces and landscapes.
We gave time and this new plant space a chance to express itself, to dialogue.
The objective was for this new forest to colonise and literally absorb the concrete masses of the residence to form a single element. The vegetation thus became the heart of the project.

Please explain how citizens and civil society were involved in the in the design and/or implementation of the project.
Please also explain the benefits that derived from their involvement.

« The Epilobs" project is part of an ambitious eco-neighbourhood project initiated by the City of Bègles and DOMOFRANCE, with the main objective of creating housing units in a heavily planted environment where the place of the car is limited in favour of a large network of soft links between car parks and buildings.
An entire neighbourhood was recreated with the help of a team of urban planners, the municipality of Bègles and Domofrance (developer, social housing office). Precise specifications were drawn up in order to impose on the designers the challenges of this new area.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the project addressed by providing local solutions

The unprecedented health crisis that has hit our planet has greatly changed the way we live.
Important changes such as the fact that some people work in their homes and that the lack of contact with the outside world is unbearable for those who do not, have literally transformed the definition of the word "space". Space is a "system" that has been enlarged and enriched by a large number of vital elements that interact with each other. Space is housing, landscape, light, view, exterior, interior, work, social links, activity, sport, ecology...
"The Epilobs" is a spatial retranscription of this constantly evolving system.

Please highlight the innovative character of the project as compared to mainstream practices in the field of the project.

"The Epilobs" project highlights 2 major innovations.
The first concerns the omnipresent material: Concrete.
Concrete is a simple and noble material, like the nature with which it interacts. The use of concrete was therefore an obvious choice for our project. Today, this element has become difficult to use because it does not meet the thermal requirements. With the help of the construction company, we looked for special concretes of the latest generation that would allow us to preserve this material which is the basis of the project. We turned to an insulating concrete of the THERMEDIA type, which was a first in our region. The formulation of this concrete improves insulation and energy performance by reducing heat loss.
The use of this new material made it possible to avoid external insulation, which would have totally distorted the appearance of the project.
The second innovation concerns the notion of "time". It was important to offer the inhabitants a place that would take the time to reveal itself. It is a project where you have to wait: wait for nature and architecture to take their place, wait for the materials used to mature: Waiting for the architectural project and nature to become one.

Please explain to the potential of transferring the projects’ results or learnings to other interested parties and contexts.
Please provide clear documentation, communication of methodology and principles in this context.

The organisation of the agency is the result of a dialogue between the founders and an evolving team of about ten people who share their knowledge and experience. The agency has qualified internal resources to design, study and monitor building projects of varying degrees of complexity. At the same time, a network of partners who contribute their knowledge, particularly in project management, gives us the possibility to respond with reactivity and relevance to the planned objectives at any time of the project.
Our approach is based on a close collaboration with our clients, which is based on in-depth discussions, permanent dialogue and expert support to jointly develop a relevant response to the situation, without assumptions or closed solutions, but with a simple, unique, specific and precise proposal.

Is an evaluation report or any relevant documentation available?

If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload it or write it below

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed project has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2022 in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the project, concept, idea, and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary.

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform https://prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu/ and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their ideas, concepts, projects, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted idea, project, concept is found to infringe third parties rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.