CAAU: Arboretum

Coldefy & Associates Architectes Urbanistes designed in Lille a residential and office complex: two towers linked by a central garden that established a balance between the area built upon a natural site and paid attention to nature in an effort to make the area denser.

The Porte de Valenciennes project must deal with the twofold problem of the continuity of boulevard Hoover and the gradual progression, starting from the economic heart of Euralille, towards the new mixed-use areas.

The programmatic distribution is both simple and obvious: the offices will open onto the major boulevard; the housing will be inserted on the inside of the plot, in contact with a more residential fabric. The 5.6m plinth brings the composition together in a coherent whole.

The double wall that characterizes the façades reconciles the treatment of domestic spaces while providing depth and width to the façade resonating with that of the offices in a coherent manner.

This “grill”, composed of an extensible module, plays with the function that it envelops. The module grows at times to form the loggias, or stretches at others responding to a double height. The rhythm of the grill becomes broken in height, exposing the duplex apartments that form the “skyline” of the block.

At the center of the inhabited buildings, the garden forms a free space as a link between two towers. It is about establishing a balance between the area built upon a natural site and the attention paid to nature in an effort to make the area denser.