COMME CHEZ SOI

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PROGRAM: Transformation of an industrial building into an elderly house - EMS . SIZE: 6000 M2 . LOCATION: Montreux, CH . CLIENT: Fondation Claire Magnin . STATUS: Competition . TIME: 2014
With railways and the « Crêtes” castle on its hill in the North and the river on the West, the project is situated above a built area which gives the opportunity of having an open view towards the lac.
By closing the existing U shaped building on the West side a courtyard is created. It is linked to the North outdoor parking through a passage crossing the volume and defining the projects new main entrance. Also, inside this new volume, a continuous circulation is created avoiding any dead-ends. The courtyard is the representative space of the project, surrounded and activated by all collective functions. Being a terrace for the eating or living rooms, access to the lobby or the shops, this outdoor space is dynamic one where residents, visitors and employees meet, cross or interact. Larger on the ground floor, the existing structure becomes a portico creating a protected zone for sun or rain.
On every level, differently oriented balconies, looking in the courtyard, are an extension to the collective spaces.
A big green terrace on the second floor is held by 2 distribution cores. It is directly accessible for everyone. Common space, it can become an eating space and can also host outdoor activities with a panorama on the lac.
Three main zones define the program: common spaces and services on the ground floor and the underground, the different houses around the courtyard and the centers needing more autonomy on the top floor.
Three cores link all the floors of the project. They are always linked with the common spaces of every floor intensify the ‘movements’ and interactivity possible on those areas. Those cores articulate all different houses and centers of the same floor.
On every floor the horizontal circulation is a loop, with no dead-end and always with punctual outdoor visual connections with different orientations. Sometimes narrow and others dilated, the loops become attractive commons spaces, distinguishable and recognizable by their orientations, functions and relations with the outside. This distribution is not just a corridor, it is a living space.
The project keeps the existing window rhythm of the facade. They are, nevertheless, lowered in order to assure a comfortable view also from the bed of every room. New opening are aligned and respect the rhythm in order to have a volumetric unity. Five typologies of windows inhabit those openings.
Crédits
In association with Nicole Froehlich . Michiel Van Der Loos