PROJECT: Construction of 117 housing units (84 social housing units and 33 private housing units) and retails
LOCATION: ZAC centre ville de Mouvaux
BUILT UP AREA: 13 000 m²
COST: 12,1 M €
TEAM: LAN Architecture (lead architect), Batiserf Ingénierie (structure), Michel Forgue (quantity surveyor), LBE (fluids)


New constructions’ urbanization potential and their capacity to integrate the history and the morphology of the city hosting them constitute the major challenge for new built-up areas.

Our strategy takes into consideration this point and other themes as town houses, cars, definition and hierarchical organization of public and collective spaces as well as environmental quality. They are integrated into the project to produce new sustainable urban models.

Analysis of uses and architecture types composing the urban morphology of Mouvaux quickly led us towards the conception of a hybrid model, an intermediate housing environment able to conjugate desire of intimacy as well as sociability.
This choice is legitimated by the scale of the constructions already composing the district and the city’s fabric. This new intervention must consider this environment.

A new urban typology
The project’s aim is to build new buildings presenting the same qualities and facilities of a single family house by adding collective spaces. We imagined several spatial systems leading to create a rich and diversified image for each program’s part.

We consider the project as an entity, where every single element has its place and a specific role in the general district’s composition. The relation between the container and the content is inverted and the new buildings become tools defining public spaces.

History and identity
Since Middle Age, inhabitants of Mouvaux were essentially dedicated to the textile industry.
The new housing fronts decline patterns based on the geometrical work of the fabric. By observing attentively, it seems evident that the fabric, the “serge” and the satin always existed in the drawings of the brick of the North, and in the different ways they are displayed.

Plots LS1 - LA3 - (and part of LS2)
Inspired by the German terrace house’s typology, the buildings are served by linear stairwells that distribute two apartments a time. This distributive device produces a high space quality with 85 % crossing apartments and 15 % south oriented dwellings.
The hybrid model between collective and individual housing here finds its maximal expression, and this richness comes from the building fronts. The link with the existing urban morphology is made by use, morphology and volume of the new constructions.

Plots LA4 – LA5
In this part of the project, the dwellings’ distribution is based on the principle of one stairwell serving two or three units on each floor.
This system allows us a great flexibility in the facades’ composition of and the corner position allows an optimal orientation for the dwellings.
Here, 70 % of the housings are crossing and triple oriented; the remaining 30 % consists of small South oriented surfaces.