The general morphology of the building is characterized by a staggering between floors that allows each apartment to be double height. The clarity of the façade planes reinforces the limits, and the folds of the masses allow its location to be adjusted in relation to neighboring buildings.
Bel Aire Residence by DLW Architectes. Photograph by Simon Guesdon.
Project description by DLW Architectes
A comfortable and individualized home in the urban center of Saint-Nazaire.
On a former public car park, a social rental building offers a new version of individualized housing.
An interaction between the collective and new ways of living.
In Saint-Nazaire, the Bel Air residence slips discreetly into a small space of two plots. The operation dialogues both with the heart of the block, a fabric of old houses, and Avenue de la République, a major axis of reconstruction after the Second World War.
Bel Aire Residence by DLW Architectes. Photograph by Simon Guesdon.
The program consists of two buildings on different scales.
The highest, in R+6 (17 housing units), faces the avenue; the other, more modest, is divided into R+3 (4 dwellings), in tiers, with the old individual building.
The spacing of these two masses makes it possible to generate a residential threshold for access to the interior courtyard, in the heart of the block, marked by the presence of an existing preserved hackberry tree.
At the bottom of the plot, after the collective garden, a single-storey volume takes up the morphology of the garden lean-tos. It includes six boxes and five private cellars which complete the accommodation.
The general organization, following permutations of staggered plan, allows each apartment to have a double-height loggia, not overlooked. The water features benefit from natural lighting.
Bel Aire Residence by DLW Architectes. Photograph by Simon Guesdon.
For each tenant, this intimate patio is like a new room, an added exterior.
Crossing and open, a large hall with raw materiality forms a breakthrough between the street and the small collective garden.
Minimalist and soft, almost Japanese atmospheres.
Access to the accommodation, via stairs bathed in natural light, is also individualized.
Whitened Douglas fir cladding, a concrete structure: Bel Air naturally resonates with the tone of downtown Nazaire.
Bel Aire Residence by DLW Architectes. Photograph by Simon Guesdon.
The clarity of the facade plans reinforces the limits, and the folds of the masses make it possible to adjust their location in relation to the neighboring buildings.
All facades are treated with external insulation without thermal bridges.
A collective garden surrounded by a bench creates a green space.
Private gardens accompany the ground floor accommodation.
The project highlights reuse. The bricks for the garden wall come from broken bitumen from the old parking lot. Placed raw, they have become a seed nest box and see the weeds growing.
