A&EB. Édouard François Housing Development, Montpellier

Por Anna & Eugeni Bach

Viaje de Barcelona a Montpellier, 346 km, 3h 10 min.
Dirección: Zac Antigone, Rue du Moulin de Semalen.

Las viviendas no son visitables a no ser que lo permita algún vecino, y para acceder a la fachada principal hay que entrar en un jardín privado. Es fácil hacerlo ya que constantemente entran y salen vecinos con lo que sólo hay que esperar un poco para poder pasar. Vale la pena hacerlo, porque es entonces cuando se aprecia, viendo el resto de viviendas alrededor, que la volumetría (la planta ligeramente curvada y el escalonado de las viviendas) viene determinada por el plan urbanístico, con la intención de cerrar un jardín común a varias promociones.

También es interesante estudiar de cerca el prefabricado de fachada, con unas piedras encastadas y unos pequeños tubos de irrigación gota a gota. El sistema debía permitir que la fachada se convirtiera en un jardín vertical, y aunque no ha funcionado exactamente como se había deseado, el resultado no resta en un proyecto excelente.

The Building that Grows is a rare encounter between architect and developer in the field of desires. The desire was for something different, material, purposeful, pleasurable, ephemeral and meaningful.

The study of the balcony was a key part of the project. There are “balcony-gardens” to dine in with many friends, “balcony-cabins” perched among the trees for more intimate encounters, “balcony-lookouts” to curiously explore the foliage of the treetops, and “balcony-terraces” for reflection and contemplation. The project could have been called “the balcony in all its forms” but instead it was named “the building that grows.”

One morning, when handling rocks, chicken wire , and concrete, we invented a living skin. It had to grow; to sprout. We put bags of potting soil and plants behind the stones. We watered it with organic fertilizer. It was seeded by mountain climbers. Then we installed an automatic irrigation system on the façade.

The building grows. Slowly. Its skin has become a kind of mini-ecosystem. The water collects in the interstices, algae forms and then dies, mosses grow and herbs colonize the resulting compost. Scattered, physical traces reflect these transformations.

This project was used in a campaign for architectural quality by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.