SAINT-ROCH STATION CAR PARK

This new above ground-level car park is located in the heart of the city of Montpellier, in the Nouveau Saint-Roch ZAC, and is part of the proposed extension of the city centre. It serves as a hinge for extending the pedestrian areas between Place de la Comédie and the Saint Roch Station. Located in the heart of the completed rail infrastructure, it will complete the ‘multimodality’ of the station’s exchanger platform.

An urban balcony/street serves as the backbone of the building and constitutes a “crossover” area. It aims to provide a spillover space for public space (ps) and revive the relations between car-park users and local people. This urban balcony is a transit or exchange area, but also, at its widest points, serves as a place for social cohesion.

This space perfectly illustrates the concept of shared private space (sps), which invites users to enjoy a level of connection, promoting get-togethers and shared use of private spaces, as a natural extension of the public space dynamic.

This building has the potential of going beyond the programmed proposed initially and is transformed into a relational building that affects its environment. It is a lighthouse element, an urban connection element that links the station neighborhood to the east and the railways, which are today are connected to the rest of the sector only by the Sète bridge.

The project features built-in scalability that would allow for future offices, homes or other emerging applications in this new information age. In short, the building’s architecture is forward-looking.

The building takes on a liveable urban code, a friendlier urban scale thanks to its organoleptic qualities and its resistance to trains and winds. This is thanks to the use of long-lasting ceramic product treated with an innovative methodology, in the form of ceramic fabric.