LA FLUTE
LA FLUTE
A housing project that acts as an urban hinge linking Marche-en-Famenne’s old town with its main access road
Year → 2011
Status → Competition
Team → de baes architects & CO-LAB Designoffice
Set on a hilly site between Marche-en-Famenne’s old town and an access road, La Flute is a housing development that acts as a stitch in the urban fabric. The design props a bar of housing units on sculptural stilts, raising it above the sloping ground plane to open up a pedestrian plaza that is both a meeting point and node linking town and road.
Process: working with the landscape
The design emerges from our analysis of the natural urban forces acting on the site, like shortcuts between the road and alleyways to the town centre, drastic elevation changes that make the site difficult to navigate, and the need for access points to a new underground parking garage. These forces give shape to the final form.
Spatial ingenuity: combining a plaza, housing development, and car park
The legs that support the housing bar sit outside the natural flowlines crisscrossing the site and form large archways that act as gateways. The arches also contain private stairways and elevators to the housing units above. A terraced plaza offers continuous access across the site, navigating the elevation changes and offering gathering places at several elevations. Access ramps to the underground car park follow the natural topography, discreetly inserted at the lowest-lying points of the site. The structure uses a Vierendeel beam system commonly used in suspension bridges.
