VAUBAN DISTRICT

On the junction of Avenue Aristide-Briand and Avenue du Rhin – not far from the Vauban basin on the Rhone-Rhine Canal –, the Urban Community of Strasbourg is continuing its Deux-Rives master plan which, in the long term, will link it to the town of Kehl, its German neighbour on the other bank of the Rhine. The Aristide-Briand operation occupies a 4,000 square metre site that, to the south, runs along the Avenue du Rhin embankment. Its lower point favours the installation of two levels of semi-underground car park that also provide a base for business premises and shops within the double height space on ground floor level. Cleverly distanced from the Avenue by a generous channel planted to provide a linear garden, the access decks serving the ground floor premises are reached by a series of wooden footbridges. Broken down into social home ownership and private real estate developments (including a programme for seniors), the 10,000 square metres of housing is contained within four buildings: the two corner plots that “signal” the complex both from west and east are completed by two intermediate buildings with a comb-like layout positioned on the park side. Established by thermal and sunlight studies, the distance between these “fingers” simultaneously creates “solar channels” and provides the apartments with views protected from the outside. Several of these are rooftop duplexes equipped with pergolas integrating photovoltaic panels. With the visual impact minimised by their positioning on the terraces – some of which laid out as collective vegetable gardens – these apartments will give the impression of being single family homes. As well as being energetically self-sufficient, these zero energy buildings will also provide the neighbouring school with a quarter of its energy requirements.