French studio Vallet de Martinis Architectes has created an assisted residing complicated for the Joffre-Dupuytren Hospital beside a forest within the suburbs of Paris.
Positioned on the fringe of the hospital’s campus, the positioning sits between the Rue de l’Erminage, a principal entrance to the city of Draveil and the Sénart Forest, of which Vallet de Martinis Architectes needed the housing to behave as a “direct extension”.
“The goal right here is to achieve dialoguing with the encircling nature, which may be very a lot current, and when attainable, to protect a direct hyperlink with the neighbourhood in addition to a sure tranquillity for future residents and customers when obligatory,” mission architect Erwan Ménard informed Dezeen.
“Since our first sketches, the emphasis has all the time been on the performance of the mission and the hyperlink with the direct setting of the forest,” he continued.
Characterised by a palette of pale brickwork, the housing contains a pair of two-storey blocks, every organised round its personal courtyard. An extra inexperienced house is inserted in between.
Drawing on the format of a typical home, Vallet de Martinis Architectes designed the constructing with open communal areas on the bottom flooring and extra personal residing items above. That is mirrored externally by a glazed base and a stable brick higher storey with deep window reveals.
“The distinction between the supplies used on the 2 ranges of the mission creates a cloth impact that separates the quantity on the higher flooring from that on the bottom flooring, and likewise gives an fascinating high quality of filtered mild,” defined Ménard.
The bottom flooring is barely set again, creating an overhang above that shelters a path across the constructing. This path leads from the primary entrance dealing with the highway to a communal backyard and petanque court docket beneath wood pergolas on the rear.
Partitions of glazing across the communal areas open out onto the central courtyards, which every have distinctive panorama designs. One comprises greens and herbs for residents to make use of, whereas the opposite has wildflowers and timber.
“The patios are particular areas of the mission, inside the constructing itself,” stated Ménard.
“One is house to a backyard of scents and herbs, with a number of vegetable backyard tables, whereas the opposite is somewhat ‘wilder’, that includes a panorama of undergrowth, birch timber, ferns and a pure fountain, as if to evoke the ambiance of the forest,” Ménard added.
A hall and workplaces on the primary flooring wrap the courtyards and supply everybody with entry to mild and views, whereas deep-set, metal-framed home windows within the bedrooms present residents with extra personal views out throughout the forest.
Internally, the pale palette of the outside has been continued with white partitions and wood-framed doorways and home windows, with Vallet de Martinis Architectes utilizing an strategy of “sobriety and moderation” to permit the panorama to come back to the fore.
Different assisted residing initiatives lately featured on Dezeen embrace a fancy in Germany that integrates housing for the aged with the broader neighborhood and the Butterfly Home designed as future-proof lodging for an aged girl and a live-in carer.
The images is by Charly Broyez.
