Residence alley and garden gate

Description

Playing with perspectives and angles to forge a link between the town and home gardens: such is the main thread of the residence project in the Petits Bois-Montreuil quarter of Versailles, designed by the Fresh Architecture agency.

• Year of delivery

  2016

• Location

  Versailles France

• Architect / signatory

  Fresh architectures

• Project owner

  Versailles habitat

• Installation company

  DSA

• Photograph

  Tandem

• Product name

  Classic brick

• Product form

  Standard

• Epidermis texture

  Through body colour

• Surface appearance

  Plain natural

• Color

  Brown & Beige

• Work

  New

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© Photos sous copyright soumises à des droits d’auteur

Titre d'article

Visual briquettes are used to provide vibrant aesthetics.

Corps d'article

With a dual focus of building durability and harmony with the surrounding character, the architects chose to clad the façades in terracotta, according to a colour palette worked with subtlety. 2500 m² have been clad in hand-moulded briquettes in two colours: pink-white and dark brown. Positioned in a highly visual manner, the bricks interlink here in the style of a zip fastener. What is the intention of this light/dark duality? To strengthen the impression of relief generated intrinsically by this highly-textured façade product. This is without obtaining a chequered effect; rather a dark, nuanced façade is offset by varying shades of colours dancing in the daylight.

Combined with the living façade of the student residence, the terracotta reveals all of its natural charm here and embodies the ambition of the architects with flair: creating living buildings, buildings that breathe, buildings with a strong link with the earth. A beautiful success.
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The word of

Fresh architectures, Architect

Interview

Luca Battaglia, Fresh Architecture

“From the offset, the town made its requirements for durable materials for these buildings clear to us. This is partly what drove us to clad the façade in terracotta. We selected a hand-moulded brick: it is textured and therefore creates surface vibrancy. The façade is bathed in light, and the brick appears to be more or less granular. When the sun is at its highest, the render appears quite smooth but when it begins to set and the light is low-angled, then all of the brickwork’s relief is revealed along with its roughness and texture. It is a moving façade.
At the agency, we work a lot with terracotta. It is a living material that is ecologically-friendly and durable. It is a real material. It’s true, in the sense that no pigment is added to it to colour it: it’s all down to the kiln firing, the production process. And we are particularly familiar with this process on living, non-denatured material. This idea of extending its DNA lineage helps to reveal its inner beauty.”