Insight
Thinking logistics and production infrastructures with a sustainable and circular approach
Case study - NICE MERIDIA
Combining different functions and generations in a denser urban environment
The Nice Méridia project brings together early years provision, schools buildings, and housing for the elderly, creating a truly coherent intergenerational complex. Built on a former industrial site, the relationship between each function of the infrastructure and its urban context is rooted in rational organisation. With diversity and urban life as our watchwords, the project affirms a new way of thinking the city and the relations between its inhabitants.
Nice Méridia - Intergenerational complex
Description
Construction of a multifunctional infrastructure
Responsible
Dominique Chaidron
Partners
babin+renaud (lead)
-IGREC
Location
Nice (France)
Client
City of Nice
Area
13.500 m²
Reuniting the generations
The innovative functional and social approach at the origin of the Nice Méridia project called for a coherent collection of programmatic elements, more commonly designed separately, for different users and needs. In fact, the “multi-home centre” aimed to gather in one building a nursing home with 128 beds, a day centre for people with Alzheimer’s, an independent living facility of 44 beds, a nursery, and two groups of primary and nursery school classes.
This naturally brings a certain level of complexity, to which the project brings simple and pragmatic architectural answers. The school group and the nursery are set up in the lower level, preserving as much as possible the sunshine of the various courtyards due to the lower height of the building. The nursing home, set over four floors, was placed at the front of the avenue to maintain a link with the urban fabric. As for the independent living facility, it is designed as a small independent building whose lobby connects the housing.
A generous and expressive architecture
The architecture is contemporary and generous, imbued with the visionary and deeply human nature of the project, and is the result of a stimulating collaboration with the Parisian architects of babin+renaud. The South facade exemplifies the generosity of the architecture, mixing collective terraces, hanging gardens and common rooms.
An offset pattern, made of fibre concrete, links all the facades in a coherent style. The variations in the bays’ pattern and alignment reflect the varied nature of the different elements of the complex. The building itself looks like a solid volume detached from the ground, emphasising the transparency and volume of the overhang.
The Méridia project sums up our teams’ key research interests: supporting people with particular needs, well-being, and respect for the environment. The collaboration of our specialists in service of babin + renaud architects is stimulating!
Rehabilitating and densifying sustainably
Established on a rehabilitated former brownfield, the project unites progressive social vision and ambitious environmental objectives. The environmental profile of the project is fully in line with the Mediterranean Sustainable Buildings initiative.
In addition, overlapping different programmes gives the infrastructure a small footprint by comparison with a more spread-out site. It serves as an example of a committed, rational urban development approach, based on the principles of density and diversity.
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