The architecture studio Dominique Coulon & associés has designed a new mixed-use complex that groups together housing and offices in the form of a small tower in the historic Krutenau district of Strasbourg, France. The city is characterised by numerous vacant lots in the city's fabric, which due to their small size have not yet attracted the attention of developers.

The project proposes a model to promote the promotion of these small lots in the city. As an opportunity for experimentation and research, the architects propose a reference building that guarantees high energy efficiency, the use of materials of biological origin and that, with a sustainable perspective, proposes a project that accommodates different uses.

The programme laid out for the complex by Dominique Coulon & associés includes a set of offices on the lower levels of the building, displaying great transparency and offering the interior activity to the city as if it were a shop window. The upper levels are reserved for residential use, with public spaces for the building's users on the roof.

The openings of different sizes in the façade seem to respond to no functional requirement, serving to conceal the interconnection between the different levels of the building. The protruding orange and silver shutters add a touch of colour to a façade that stands out for its dark colour, thanks to an exterior cladding of burnt wood.

Edificio de uso mixto en Estrasburgo por Dominique Coulon & associés. Fotografía por Eugeni Pons.

Mixed-use building in Strasbourg by Dominique Coulon & associés. Photograph by Eugeni Pons.

Project description by Dominique Coulon & associés

This small tower has been built in the historic Krutenau district in Strasbourg. The city has a number of “hollow teeth”: vacant plots that are too small to be of interest to promoters. In exchange for an attractive price, the consultation called for the production of an exemplary building guaranteeing the achievement of high energy performances, the use of bio-sourced materials, and a mixed-purpose project.

On a plot measuring just 120 square metres, we proposed a programme of offices and accommodation, with a kitchen garden and an organic swimming pool on the topmost terrace. The skin is in scorched wood (larch), a technique often utilised in Japan that makes the material long-lasting by scorching its outer surface. The facade masks the interconnection of the programmes. The openings in the walls do not seem to correspond to any functional requirements, and their different sizes make it difficult to distinguish the different levels of the building. This is contained freedom. Towards the top, a volume of rough concrete pivots through ten degrees, appearing to detach itself from the black mass of the wood base and producing a dynamic angle.

Edificio de uso mixto en Estrasburgo por Dominique Coulon & associés. Fotografía por Eugeni Pons.
Mixed-use building in Strasbourg by Dominique Coulon & associés. Photograph by Eugeni Pons.

The orange and silver-coloured projecting blinds add a touch of colour to the strange outline of this dark building. The building is generous with the street. Large bay windows offer views into the scale-model workshop, which is slightly below street level, so that the activity of an architect’s office can be seen. This transparency is often seen in Scandinavian countries, where people place their most attractive belongings next to a window, as if offering them to the street outside. Like Loos’ Raumplan, the spaces interconnect in a complex fashion, with double heights lending fluidity to the whole. The spacing between the different floors differs according to the spaces, giving them their proper proportions.

On the inside, the materials used are sturdy and rustic. The concrete floors have merely been polished. Shelving and cupboards are in wood; the staircase is in untreated metal. The building appears to play with the contradictions in the situation, condensing its complexity and offering a joyful rendition.

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Architects
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Dominique Coulon & associés. Lead architects.- Dominique Coulon, Olivier Nicollas, Benjamin Rocchi, Steve Letho Duclos.

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Project team
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Competition.- Benjamin Rocchi.
Architects assistants.- Javier Gigosos-Ruipérez, Fanny Liénart, Diego Bastos-Romero,  Jean Scherer.
Construction site supervision.- Olivier Nicollas, Javier Gigosos-Ruipérez.

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Collaborators
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Structural Engineer.- Batiserf ingénierie.
Electrical Engineer.- BET G. Jost.
Mechanical Pulmbing Engineer.- Solares Bauen.
Cost Estimator.- E3 Économie.

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Builder
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Structure.- Cba. 
Water Proofing.- Carcereri.  
Exterior Wood Joinery.- Vollmer. 
Plastering.- Kems. 
Heating Ventialtion.- Falieres.
Plombing and Drainage.- Frank Sanitaire.
Electricity.- Veit.
Interior Wood Work.- Kern. 
Metalworks.- Sigwald. 
Painting.- Heinrich Schmitt.
Swimming Pool.- Balena.

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Area
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500 sqm.

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Dates
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Competition.- November 2009.
Completed.- September 2015.

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Location
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13 rue de la Tour des pêcheurs, 67 000. Strasbourg, France.

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Budget
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€ 1,320,000.

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Photography
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Dominique Coulon & associés. Located in the heart of Strasbourg, Dominique Coulon & Associés is a firm of architects of national and international renown.

For more than 25 years, the agency has earned a reputation for the quality of the public facilities it designs. It has worked on a wide and varied range of programmes, including a media library, music school, auditorium, school complex, swimming pool, sports facilities, a residential home for the dependent elderly, and housing.
 
Dominique Coulon (1961) and his three associates Steve Lethos Duclos, Olivier Nicollas and Benjamin Rocchi allow their intuition to lead the way as they seek to develop contextual projects that combine contrast and complexity, where the outer envelope hints at inner richness. Spatial quality and natural light are fundamental elements in every project: space is always controlled by precise geometry.

The agency has received many awards and distinctions: firstly in 1996 with the Prix de la Première Oeuvre for the ‘Pasteur’ lower secondary school in Strasbourg, followed by several nominations for the Équerre d’Argent award in 1999, 2002 and 2003. In 2006 it was a prize-winner in the PEB1 Compendium of Exemplary Educational Establishments organised by the OECD, for the ‘Martin Peller’ school complex in Reims. In 2008 it was nominated for the BSI Swiss Architectural Award and the European Union prize awarded by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, for the National Drama Centre in Montreuil. It has received a Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award on three occasions. In 2014, it won the Pool Vision Contest prize in the ‘public pools’ category, for the swimming pool in Bagneux. In 2017 it received the first prize in the Eiffel Trophies rewarding steel architecture, for the Media Library (Third Place) in Thionville, and was nominated for the European Union prize awarded by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, for the residential home for the dependent elderly and the residential centre for handicapped people in Orbec.
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Published on: October 28, 2024
Cite: "A sustainable and responsible set. Mixed-use building by Dominique Coulon & associés" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/sustainable-and-responsible-set-mixed-use-building-dominique-coulon-associes> ISSN 1139-6415
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