querkraft

The high-rise residential building, workers' hostel and childcare facility form an ensemble in the Clichy-Batignolles urban development area planned according to ecologically efficient criteria on the site of the former Batignolles freight station, whose green lung is formed by Martin Luther King Park, which was completed before the residential buildings.

The residential towers are arranged diagonally opposite each other on the site in such a way as to guarantee views of the park and beyond. The star-shaped kindergarten and crèche building, constructed using a timber-concrete composite construction method, acts as a connecting base, with its arms enclosing two courtyards that are lower than street level.

The different uses are expressed in a formally differentiated but related façade design in terms of materiality and texture. Both are united by a cladding of dark clinker brick slips, accentuated by elements of silvery aluminum: in front of the windows of the 55 workers' apartments, sliding brisesoleils made of aluminum slats provide lively accents.

In the 50-metre-high tower, which houses 77 social housing apartments with up to five rooms, the aluminium slats of the balcony parapets simulate three-dimensional protrusions: with different densities and wavy or jagged upper and lower edges in the style of a trompe l'oeil.

French windows allow access to this balcony zone from every room, which widens into sufficiently deep lounge areas thanks to recesses in the building structure at the corners and in the middle of the long sides. The residents were given a furniture set - parasol, table, flower trough and clothes horse - when they moved in so that they could quickly make use of these open spaces.