360 housing units in Pontoise

Program: Construction of 360 housing units for staff of the Gendarmerie Nationale
Address: Zac Bossut 95300 Pontoise (France)
Procedure: Design-build
Clients : Immobilière 3F and Immobilière 3F for Val d’Oise Habitat

Architect: PLAN01 (collective of architects consisting of: Atelier du Pont, Ignacio Prego Architectures, Jean Bocabeille Architecte, Koz and Philéas)
(Project manager: Eve Honnet, Site supervision: François Giannesini and Xin Luo)
General contractor: Léon Grosse

Team:
Engineering : Incet
Sustainable engineering : PLAN02
Landscape designer: Paula Paysage
Light design: Lumesens
Stakeholders:
Communauté d’agglomération de Cergy-Pontoise
Ville de Pontoise
Cergy Pontoise Aménagement
Agence Pierre Gangnet
LGX
Sustainability: BBC - H&E Profil A
Construction cost: 45 251 000 € (pre-tax)
Construction cost ratio: 1 450 €/m² inhabitable surface area, parking included
Surface: 31 068 m² inhabitable surface area
Collective terraces: 3 507 m²

How do you create architectural quality and diversity within a large-scale building complex within a short timeframe (10 months of planning, 24 months of construction) and at a building cost of 1,450 € /m² inhabitable surface area, parking included?

Following the client’s decision to use a “Design-build” procedure that corresponded to the cost and scheduling issues, we had to work smartly and collectively to implement inventive strategies.
The roof terraces of the buildings are laid out to welcome mutualized outdoor spaces instead of private ones. They are distinguished by thematic colors: “red-athletics” (sports, games, etc.), “blue-pool” (relaxation, children’s playground), and “green-garden” (vegetable garden, ping-pong, etc.).
The inhabitants will be able to inhabit the rooftops and most importantly, they will be able to inhabit them together. No illusions or fake utopias in these shared uses, as the occupants (gendarmes and their families) are used to a coherent, organized community living.
In contrast to the classic housing block that had been put forth in the initial working brief, the collective Plan01 instead chose diversity and proposed a varying building height that created a skyline devoid of monotony and with multiple views.
The 5 firms that make up the collective PLAN01 worked side by side on this project, each one working separately on portions of the buildings that had been preliminarily assigned according to a master plan. In this way, each part retains its own characteristics (facades, colors, etc.) that bear the imprint of the firm that designed it. Because the firms work together in a workshop setting, the whole of the project is carried out with a sense of cohesion, and at the same time, it contains a diversity of architectural expression that usually only time brings to the building of a city.