Skip to content

Audio Version

See more about

More info

Design: Philippe Dubus Architects.

Location: Nantes, France.

Photographs: Sergio Grazia and Michel Denancé.

Nantes Housing

This project starts from the center and is one of the most multi-purposed buildings the agency has ever undertaken: 56 apartments, a nursery school, a center for social reintegration and offices. It is in Nantes (western France), right in the middle of the historical old town, not far from the Beaux-Arts museum. This very urbanized installation surrounds and highlights a wooded garden that has been preciously preserved.

The facilities are on the ground floor, and the entirely windowed outer walls are drawn with great precision along the street. They blend into the landscape in the depth of the inner garden and progressively embed into the slope to lodge their garden-roofs in the shade of the cedar trees. The tiered façades of the apartments stretch along the street. The building is split by two wide breaches along its top to provide neighbors with views of the inner landscape and residents triple exposures, extended by the angled loggias that overlook the street or garden, as well as views of the Saint-Clément church steeple and the nearby Jardin des Plantes. The contemporary architectural language is intentional with all of the outer walls decorated in horizontal metallic cladding and bands, between which shutters, louvers and stainless-steel panels with curtain-like folds are inserted. The garden at the building’s center illustrates another conception of town-center density that is both generous and landscaped.

Plans

Section

Design: Philippe Dubus Architects.

Location: Nantes, France.

Photographs: Sergio Grazia and Michel Denancé.

urbanNext (December 21, 2024) Nantes Housing. Retrieved from https://urbannext.net/nantes-housing/.
Nantes Housing.” urbanNext – December 21, 2024, https://urbannext.net/nantes-housing/
urbanNext January 28, 2017 Nantes Housing., viewed December 21, 2024,<https://urbannext.net/nantes-housing/>
urbanNext – Nantes Housing. [Internet]. [Accessed December 21, 2024]. Available from: https://urbannext.net/nantes-housing/
Nantes Housing.” urbanNext – Accessed December 21, 2024. https://urbannext.net/nantes-housing/
Nantes Housing.” urbanNext [Online]. Available: https://urbannext.net/nantes-housing/. [Accessed: December 21, 2024]

urbanNext
urbanNext | expanding architecture to rethink cities and territories

Newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter

Search
Generic filters
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in excerpt
Formats
Audio&visual
Concept
Data
Essay
Forum
Lecture
Podcast
Project
Talk
Survey
Statement
Selfthink
High Density
Middle Density
Low Density
No Density

talk

essay

project

product

survey

data

all formats