Jardins de la Gradelle Apartments / LRS Architectes

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By analogy, each apartment is designed as an interior landscape, with living areas spaciously structured around a loggia set at the corners of the plan. Particular attention is paid to exterior extensions in the form of walkway balconies, allowing residents to circulate and occupy the outside space. At corners, a fold in the balcony that alternates from one floor to the next substantially enhances the balconies’ use value and rate of sunshine, helping create an organic, playful perception of the ensemble.Text description provided by the architects.The project proposes a contemporary interpretation of the garden city, combining a human, landscape-oriented scale with the notion of density and rationality. Three structured towers of varying heights are set in the center of a large garden. Through this strategy, the project presents an organic volumetric response to the park.Seeking a residential style, the façades use a contrasting language of expressive slabs of whitewashed prefabricated concrete, combined with a darker anodized aluminum façade set further back. The crossed balustrade rails create a play on light that changes according to the interior and exterior perspectives, highlighting the folded geometry of the three towers.It incorporates it into a heterogeneous existing architectural context consisting of ten-story housing developments to the southeast and semi-detached homes to the west. As the plan's centerpiece, the park project is the result of a competition won by the firm Vulcan, which proposed maximal use of the plot through a peripheral loop promenade for its residents.