The city of Trouville-sur-Mer has 4760 inhabitants. It is an important tourist destination during the summer period. This activity generates short-term jobs with a high turn-over and, and a very specific need for housing.

So the city decided to create a residence (26 units) for seasonal workers, adapted to short stays.

 

The plot of the project is located in the garden city of the « Croix Sonnet » district, on the edge of the residence. It is a residence of individual and intermediate social housing surrounded by a beautiful landscape garden. The site is directly connected to the city center by a departmental road. On the other side of this main road a elderly residence has been recently built with a strong "Neo-Norman" style architecture. The plot of the project is also framed by the inner path of the garden city.

The house of seasonal workers project will have the responsibility to be integrated into this existing context and to make a smooth transition between the different architectural scales of this territory.

 

The "house of seasonal workers" is a small urban village on the edge of the city garden with a roof covered with a red slate tile cladding that looks like the colour of the roofs of the neighbouring houses.

The project continues and respects the urban alignment of existing buildings along the departmental road.

 

From the main road, the house of seasonal workers looks like a two levels building and let’s only discover a part of its geometry. The project seems to consist of three collective housing blocks on which a slight external corridor (accessible by two metal staircases) connects the three volumes, and allows to serve the apartments of the first floor and the common terraces.

The communal terraces create a visual break through the garden city and in the same time through the elderly residence, thus lightening the mass of the building. More than a circulation space, it is a meeting and sharing place for residents. Depending on the season and the events, the tenants will be able to appropriate the common terrace, by installing furniture there for example.

On this side, the facades have a simple white coating and the second floor has the peculiarity of being punctuated by vertical hollow joints randomly placed.

 

From the inner street of the garden city, the "house of seasonal workers" fully reveals its architecture. The building changes its scale. The project seems to draw a village thanks to the multiplication of roofs and volumes, like the shapes of the surrounding houses of the garden city or the beach huts along the sea. Just like the facade on the departmental road, the latter is also coated with white coating. In order to give rhythm and to accentuate the village effect by the differentiation of the volumes, one in two is marked by vertical hollow joints randomly arranged.

 

The volumes of the house of seasonal workers create a buffer sequence of gradual height between the departmental road and the garden city, passing from a building with two levels to a more discrete volume of one single floor.

 

The roofs of the building (clad with red slate tile) turn on the gables to further highlight the contemporary character of the project. They also turn on the gables framing the common terraces to give an identity to the space.

 

Fifteen uncovered parking spaces will be provided, including one reserved for the disabled people. They will be located along the inner road of the garden city to free up a maximum of land, and generate more green space on the plot.

 

The house of seasonal workers is a contextual building that incorporates the architectural codes of its built environment while providing a contemporary aesthetic.