In the ZAC St Roch, our Higher Roch project, with its societal and environmental values, its tower, symbolises the gateway to a new sustainable neighbourhood. It provides a link between two urban histories. The design of its mineral base responds to the historic low-rise city. The contemporary city, densified in height, is answered by the tower with its undulating forms and whose interior-exterior porosity and reconnection with the vegetation are subtly worked out.
On the edge of the historic city, the ZAC St Roch, a territory conquered on the rails, favours the emergence of a new animated, open, mixed and sustainable district. In this urban puzzle, which is being put in place, lot III occupies a particularly strategic and privileged place, because, with its height of 50 metres, it symbolises the gateway to the new district and as such, must link two urban histories. This is why we have worked on the project in two superimposed registers.
The first is addressed to the historic city, the lower city, and is represented by a stone base of varying heights. Like a ribbon of stone, its architectural orthogonality unites all the programmes that make up the block. It integrates a base of shops and an R+6 office building facing the station. The second building is directed towards the distance, towards the upper city, its geometry changes, becomes free and organic. This is the Higher Roch tower, which contains 82 flats spread over 16 levels. The undulating forms of the floors and terraces, which recall the contour lines, are stacked and successively offset. These overhangs are connected to each other by a giant metal mesh.
The dwellings have been designed with the climate in mind; it is a Mediterranean tower that enhances the uses and fluidity between inside and outside thanks to very generous terraces. The outdoor spaces are designed to be continuous, like living rooms of great size, between light and shade. For one, does not live on the Mediterranean coast like in Paris.
This project participates in the conception of the sustainable city, by responding to contemporary social, societal and environmental values.
It is composed of a social, functional and generational mix. Moreover, it creates a dialogue between old and new buildings and, as a base designed and conducive to the growth of vegetation, it offers the environment a major place.
