facades. In collaboration with roofing membrane manufacturer Sika Sarnafil, the new product took a year to develop and certify. Made from polyolefin, a polymer more commonly used for shrinkwrap or moulded flexible foam, it is soft, waterproof and recyclable. However as the skin was judged too potentially vulnerable to risk prolonged encounters with the public and sharp objects, each housing block sits on a rusticated base of concrete at street level, cast in swirling pastel-hued layers, with large pebbles embedded in their geological strata. On the south-facing street facade,
‘This is my first
soft building,’ announces Édouard François of his latest housing scheme in Grenoble, as we pore over images and maquettes at his surprisingly low-key atelier in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. The ambience is more workshop than office, with drawings, models and material samples jamming every available surface; evidence of countless architectural eureka moments that are tested, refined and finally brought into being. The latest eureka moment is
softness. François whips out an initial image of Grenoble showing three interlocking blocks clad in a black rubberised skin, like some kind of fetish accessory. ‘This is how I originally envisaged it,’ he explains, ‘but the client was a bit…
ambivalent.’ Quelle surprise. But for some time, François had been toying with the concept of energy efficient ‘soft architecture’, seeing a contradiction in buildings containing increasingly thick layers of ‘soft’ insulation concealed by a hard outer carapace of brick or concrete. ‘Why not express this softness more literally?’ he suggests. This led to the notion of wrapping the building in a soft outer skin, which would have the effect of reducing both the thickness of insulation and the number of fixing points where cold bridging could occur. François initially devised a prototypical installation sheathed in a cladding system resembling rubberised upholstery, and this led to the development of the thinner, cream coloured skin used on the Grenoble
a giant Jenga-style timber pergola implanted with saplings provides deck access, shade and generous terraces for individual flats, so the general effect is as much rustic as erotic. Blocks are animated by signature details, such as chestnut paling balustrades (typical of François’ penchant for cheap or disregarded materials) and living screens of greenery that beautifully and efficiently temper the summer heat. However the Grenoble scheme is not as luxuriantly extreme as the famous Flower Tower (AR September 2004), in which pots of mature bamboo formed a shaggy green corona around a Paris apartment block. Known for its high-tech industries and as a base for winter sports (it hosted the 1968 Winter Olympics), Grenoble lies at the foot of the French Alps. You can’t escape the mountains; they cluster around the city like topographic bouncers and loom up at the end of every street, abruptly terminating vistas. The Grenoble housing development forms part of a wider zone d’aménagement concerté (ZAC), a now familiar urban development vehicle involving various architects working together within an overall planning framework. With the ZAC model there’s always a sense of many hands at work, and Grenoble’s ZAC de Bonne is no exception. Billed as France’s first ‘eco quarter’, it involves an ambitious parcelling up of
The Architectural Review / October 2010 / Buildings 071
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100