Social residence “Les Chaudronniers”, Mulhouse (F), Europan 3

Thierry Maire, Olivier Méheux and Alain Oesch are runners-up of EUROPAN 3, “at home in the city”, in 1993 on the Mulhouse site (F), which culminated in the first commission: the social residence Les Chaudronniers, on an other site in the same city. Profiting of this first order, they create their office, TOA architects.
Neither public, nor private, in the competition project in the outskirts of Mulhouse, the legitimacy of communal space is a matter of question. The aim is that it should be a shared space. To encourage encounters and temporary appropriation of these Threshold spaces, a multiplicity of routes offers the choice to meet or to avoid, to walk or to pass through. Apart from its aesthetic value, Heritage is a dynamic link between the past and future city.
The realisation, the “Chaudronniers” social residence, extends these ideas and organises a graduated stratification of space, from the most public to the most intimate. The different dwelling typologies promote a population mix. Exchanges and encounters are made possible by the variety of communal spaces and forms of appropriation - Intensity. Inspired by a general context (programme, site, participants, etc.) and its interpretation, the Narrative, the imagination, is a source of intuition that allies the nature of the object with the meaning of the project.

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