In order to demonstrate that an urban renovation can be fused with the existing structure rather than traumatising it, french architecture practice Tetrarc seizes the opportunity for a consultation with Vendée Habitat: the regional social housing office is planning to tear down roughly ten dilapidated small houses dating from the 1960s erected on a site measuring 3,553 m2 in order to build 36 comfortable housing units to be occupied by more than one hundred people in Saint-Gilles Croix de Vie, a well known Atlantic port in France. Instead of erecting horizontal or vertical structures at odds with a sensitive urban environment, Tetrarc is proposing to establish a hamlet there in order to ensure urban continuity whilst giving occupancy of the plot of land to 101 housing units/ha and forming a strong interiority beneficial to the development of social interaction between residents.
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images © Stephane Chalmeau
