Can Strata Apartments be Architecturally Valuable
Another dimension for making strata title desirable ...
Why don’t more strata buildings win architectural awards? And, when they do why are they unconventional [not what the real estate spruikers are selling right now]? The answers are worth considering as this recent Burgundian winner demonstrates.
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We’ve all bemoaned the dull [if not ugly] strata buildings that are being built by so many developers to take advantage of housing shortages, cheap finance, and rising property values. So, when a strata apartment building gets recognised for it’s architectural value, it’s a rare opportunity to see and understand what could make the difference and what it might do for strata land.
In this recent New York Times article ‘The 25 Most Significant Works of Postwar Architecture’ one of the 25 buildings is an apartment complex. And, not the kind of super-lux apartment complex you might expect.
Grand Parc Apartments in Bordeaux, France, is an older 3 building residential complex that was renovated over the last decade by French architects Anne Lacaton, Jean-Philippe Vassal, Frédéric Druot, and Christophe Hutin to improve
They were chosen for the project by the city of Bordeaux to rejuvenate the ageing post-modernist housing complex and after earlier criticism in French architectural circles of the French government’s costly and wasteful habit of demolishing housing blocks rather than rehabilitating them.
The renovation was undertaken whilst the building was occupied, which is a challenge in itself, and involved the addition of deep glazed winter gardens onto apartments to extended them, introduce light into the spaces and enliven the drab facade. They have visually transformed the buildings and the apartments and improved liveability.
Architectural experts have said the following things about the Grand Parc Apartments rejuvenation which reveal the significance of what they’ve achieved:
‘it seems like the future of green social housing to me, which is essential if we want to consider the survival of the planet’,
‘it’s difficult to communicate this project without extensive narrative, and that’s the challenge, I think, but actually, what’s so great about it: It has very complicated programming and processes’,
‘that’s a good case for it in my mind. It’s distinct in that it’s not immediately arresting’ and
‘they are a return to the politics of Modernism — dedicated to the idea, if not always the practice, of architecture that could work for ordinary people — one reimagined with a deeper, more nuanced understanding of sustainability’
The project also won the coveted Mies van der Rohe award in 2019 which is pretty amazing for a public housing renovation.
So, this is a great example of how much can be done and achieved through innovative thinking, adventurous decision making, and outcomes-based strategies.
To me, the changes that have been made at Grand Parc Apartments reveal how the internal experiences of apartment living can trump the outward trappings and glitz of real estate fashions and marketing programs. The photograph of bikes hanging from balustrades and real people living thier lives says it all.
There are also lessons about the value that skilled architects bring to transform older buildings and spaces and I can see how many ageing strata apartments could do the same thing.
Here are some more images of the project.
Plus, you can read and see a lot more about Grand ParcApartments in Bordeaux, France at the following places:
Grand Parc, Bordeaux review – a rush of light, air and views, The Guardian
Transformation of 530 dwellings - Grand Parc Bordeaux, EUMiesawaard
Grand Parc Bordeaux, Housing Evolutions
Grand Parc in Bordeaux, France by Lacaton & Vassal, The Architectural Review
If we want to make strata title a more desirable form of property to own, live and invest in we need to look at better housing outcomes for the occupants in old as well as new strata buildings.
August 03, 2021
Francesco