AJAP 09-10 exhibition at the French Institute of Architecture

Turkish Embassy, 2007

Berlin, Germany

Program: Turkish Embassy in Germany

Architect: Julien Abinal // Abinal & Ropars

Beneficiary: Republic of Turkey

With Édouard Ropars, architect

Start of studies: 2007

Status: international competition, project not selected

Surface: 8.684 m² SHON*) | Cost: 21.779.472 € FT**)

Team: Alexandre Cherbonnier and Erika Tomezac (assistant architects), SDU (economist)

In the historic Tiergarten district, the Turkish Embassy is housed in a compact P+3 building, which needed to assert its identity while avoiding oriental clichés. This paradox is expressed in the plan inspired by traditional Turkish motifs, which take on an octagonal shape reflecting on itself in multiple ways.

This device allows for a centered organization of the program, with two spaces on two levels: the reception hall - on the ground floor and the patio - on the second floor. Three rings grouping the other functions are installed on the periphery of the building. From a structural point of view, this complex design translates on the facade into a series of superimposed frames and staggered storeys, with the upper level resting on half of the lower level. The choice of an open aluminum cladding responds to the desire to reinforce a contemporary materiality and the image of the embassy.

*) Surface area without net work

**) Without taxes

Student housing, 2009

Le Havre, France

Program: 100 student residences made of maritime containers

Architect: OLGGA architectes // Guillaume Grenu, Nicolas Le Meur, Alice Vaillant

Beneficiary: Crous de Haute-Normandie

With Sogeti ingénierie, Abe acoustique and Empreinte

Status: competition in June 2009, project ranked 2nd

Surface: 3.969 m² SHON | Cost: 5.322 € TT

Already studied by Olgga as part of a participation in Europan 9, this site was chosen by Crous which, for the first time in France, has undertaken to build 100 student housing units out of metal shipping containers. The project proposes the fabrication of a new landscape on this changing territory located between the port and the city center. Two built complexes, located perpendicular to the basin, articulate around an inner courtyard in the shape of an urban canyon. 112 stacked containers, grouped in checkerboard and terraced, define the new geography of the site. The roofs are "vegetalized", while the exterior staircases evoking scaffolding evoke an industrial vocabulary. All the dwellings are 'walk-through' and built on the same principle, with the ground-floor dwellings designed for the disabled.

Streets of Delémont, 2008

Delémont, Switzerland

Program: urbanization of the Gros Seuc site

Architect: NP2F // F. Chas, N. Guerin, F. Long et P. Maître-Devallon

Beneficiary: Europan Suisse, city of Delémont

With Taktyk

Status: Europan 9 competition, project awarded (ex æquo) in December 2007

Surface area: 3 ha | Estimated cost: 5 million Swiss francs (public spaces) and 38 million Swiss francs (roof)

Specifically Swiss, the duality between urbanity and vernacular habitat is considered here as the matrix of the proposal for the development of a 3-hectare neighborhood near the center of Delémont. Urban "plots" affirming a certain density, but preserving the domestic scale, group together dwellings, oblique streets, rainwater harvesting networks, public squares, gardens, underground parking lots and shops. This typology is in line with the double staircase and becomes the privileged instrument of the diversity of ways of living. Here it is the public and community spaces that influence the practice of the territory. These plots are criss-crossed by streets meandering in the form of ramps as in a village, forming the public backbone of the project. NP2F is now working on finalizing the neighborhood master plan.