Ilot Queyries will create a new neighbourhood East of the River Garonne and will transform the area into a lively urban setting spanning 2.5 ha with over 300 apartments, commercial premises, a rooftop restaurant, collective park and parking. Located next to the larger ZAC Bastide-Niel masterplan by MVRDV, the project borrows and tests its parametric system aimed at updating Bordeaux by combining the virtues of the historic city–intimacy, surprise and liveliness– with the density, ecology, light and comfort of the modern city. The plan is conceived together with local architects Flint.
Designed to fully exploit this exceptional location, the buildings’ facades adapt to their opposite views towards the River Garonne and the historic city. The plan aims to reflect the qualities of Bordeaux World Heritage Site city centre whilst adding new qualities. Emblematic of the masterplan are facades with 45° angles which are used as a tool to generate maximum ventilation, daylight and sun. These angles have also opened the possibilities to create innovative housing. The larger building at the riverfront will have a distinct gold-splashed façade, whilst different shades of ceramic tiles, give a textured effect from top to bottom. The glass-fronted rooftop restaurant offers panoramic views of the historic city and river. At the heart of this collective dwellings is its large public courtyard with a garden of alder, birch and high grasses.
"For the Bastide Niel master plan we make an update of the European city: based on the values of the historic city that is intimate, dense and mixed, whilst at the same time proposing new objectives like sunlight for all, even on the ground floor, new energy supplies with solar panels, integrated water system and more green spaces” explains MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “The concept of the cuts of the volumes is introduced here at Ilot Queyries which can be interpreted as a pilot project of the master plan Bastide Niel. Cuts in the volume allow the new qualities and allow adapting to the neighbours and mimic the height of nearby buildings. The result is ‘a true Grande Dame’ which stretches from very low pavilion-like housing towards the neighbourhoods at the back and more ambitious and monumental where the scale permits to do so, for example at the Garonne riverside facing the historic left bank."
Ilot Queyries articulates the future of Bastide Niel and was initiated by Kaufman & Broad and Adim, the project is part of the wider ZAC Bastide-Niel masterplan which will create an inviting, attractive and greener extension to the city centre of Bordeaux, with a mixed programme of housing, retail, offices, higher education and other public facilities all laid out in a fine and intimate urban fabric.
In 2011, during the competition phase, MVRDV worked together with Marc Joubert (JA) on the overall plan after which plot divisions was made. The main building is designed by MVRDV, whilst other plots are designed and developed by both Flint and JA. The landscape design is in collaboration with Sabine Haristoy and Flint.
Ilot Queyries will be completed in mid-2019 and is part of MVRDV’s ongoing projects in France including collective housing in Rennes, a brownfield generation masterplan in Caen and urban shopping mall transformations in Paris and Lyon.
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