Starting from the site.. we were very impressed by how the social quarter, we had to project for, was. It was a park with well done buildings all around. Ours would be, by program, in the middle of a huge meadow.
So we decided to suspend the building on pilotis not to destroy the beautiful existing green carpet. Under the very area of the building we sited the parking, while the surface cut off from green on the ground for the parking was returned upside, with a park on the roof.
We thought the building should be private (apartments) but public also. The park on the roof and the tower are open to people (not only to residents) to become a landmark itself, an model of integration and of social living. So we designed more functions in the same building: complexity was the program we chose.
From a mono-typologic building to a multi-typological building !
Moreover we decided that the building should communicate its identity to the quarter, because it was not only a simple residential building, but a place for everyone who wanted to share an experience (gym, relax, restaurant, laundry).
Et voilà, the second transformation: from public to publicity.
Every floor has different functions: apartments (simplex/duplex, for young/elderly people, for families, studios), shops, common places where to share activities (small garden, laundry, kitchen).
We kept on thinking mixitè, sharing spaces, open buildings would have given opportunities to weakest people to have a better life more than enclosed quarters or gated communities.
DATA
Bâtiment public(ité) is at Meyrin, Géneve, Swizerland.
It is a competition made by Fondation Camille Martin (6th price).
This project has received a mention of the jury.
Built surface is about 6.000 sm
Francesca Monti, Simona Bianchini and Laura De Miglio collaborated with us.