In Bordeaux, a project by the French bureau Lacaton & Vassal is being implemented - the renovation of three social housing buildings. In 1996, the city's municipality initiated the Bordeaux 2030 development program aimed at improving the quality of the urban environment. The renovation of housing in the Cité du Grand Parc is one of its final stages. Lacaton & Vassal won the competition for a residential renovation project in 2011 with successful social housing renovation projects in Paris and Saint-Nazaire.
The Cité du Grand Parc began its history in 1954, when, at the request of the city authorities, French urbanist Jean Royer designed a new residential area intended for French repatriated from Algeria. Cité du Grand Parc occupies an area of 60 hectares not far from the city center. In his work, Royer was guided by the theories of the functionalists of the 20th century and took as a basis the model of the green city of Le Corbusier. Thus, the new array was built on an orthogonal grid and was buried in 8 hectares of greenery, and the projected infrastructure made it possible to provide the townspeople with a comfortable standard of living with significant autonomy of the region. Residential buildings with 4,000 apartments with a typical sectional structure with a staircase-lift core were built in the early 1960s.
Residential buildings G ("Gounod"), H ("Handel") and I ("Ingres"), entrusted to the architects of Lacaton & Vassal, contain a total of 530 apartments, and in total 2,300 are subject to renovation in the Cité du Grand Parc.
The architects chose the approach they had already worked out - expanding the existing building by adding an additional volume of the winter garden to it. In 2007-2011, the bureau thus successfully reconstructed the Tour Bois Le Pretre tower in the north of Paris, and then their project was awarded the prestigious architectural award "Silver Square". As a result of a similar decision in Bordeaux, the width of buildings H and I will increase by almost 5 meters: 3.8 m of a winter garden and 1 m of an open balcony, and the width of building G by 9.6 m. The difference is that to buildings H and I additional volumes will be added only to the southern facades, from where a beautiful panoramic view of the city opens, and to G - from both sides, west and east.
The existing 38,400 m2 of the total area of the three buildings will be converted into 68,000 m2 after the completion of the reconstruction. Each apartment will receive additional space suitable for full use. Despite the significant depth of the extension, according to the authors, the interior will not become dark, but, on the contrary, will be filled with light: window openings will significantly increase (they will become balcony doors), in addition, the facades are not shaded by the surrounding buildings.
Conservatories will create a favorable bioclimatic environment in apartments and increase - acting as an insulating layer - the energy efficiency of homes. The gardens open onto the façade with solid glazing and are closed, if necessary, with vertical blinds.
The structure of the buildings proved to be very suitable for such transformations. The architects did not need to change the structure of the load-bearing walls or the stairwells. Therefore, the project was economically profitable, and all funds were used to create an extension on the facades.
In addition to winter gardens, the project provides for partial renovation of premises and reconstruction of bathrooms. To improve functional efficiency, it is proposed to reorganize the entrance lobbies and vertical circulation in the building. The changes will also affect the gardens on the adjoining plots - access to them will become easier. The architects offer residents an open, free and bright space designed to make life as comfortable as possible.
In the Cité du Grand Parc project, Lacaton & Vassal set out to set an example of high-quality and rational reconstruction, transforming the social housing of the middle of the last century, which is so often criticized and displayed in a negative light, into comfortable and efficient, prolonging the life of an outdated typology.
The project is financed by a € 21.6 million loan from the Aquitanis development company and a € 3.2 million grant from the municipality. Construction is expected to be completed by 2015. It is noteworthy that the project does not require residents to move from their apartments during the work.
