Laurent Salomon – Meyzieu

PROJECT: Laurent Salomon – Meyzieu

LOCATION: Meyzieu

YEAR: 1990

ARCHITECT / FIRM: Laurent Salomon

BUYER: Municipality of Meyzieu

SURFACE: 12.000 sqm

PRICE: € 1.000.000

DESCRIPTION:
In Meyzieu, the project is set in the center of the old village. The program consists mainly of housing, the construction of which must simultaneously define a market on the one hand and a public park on the other, although the old building already on the throne on the square is the old town hall turned into a "Palace of Associations". The market area is delimited on the ground floor of the building that separates the square and the park from a row of shops on the side of the square. An isolated residential building completes the urban structure.

DESCRIPTION:
In the mid-1980s, Mitterrandian France imagined healing the "evil of the suburbs" by organizing a series of identity refounding projects born from the offer that imaginative architects could make to ambitious mayors. This operation will be called "Banlieue 89" in relation to the approach of the bicentenary of the French Revolution. It is the first time since the post-war reconstruction that the question of the urban form has been offered as a potential remedy to the social consequences of purely administrative urban planning, which has been imposed for 35 years and which is only a perversion of the precepts of the Athens Charter. In this political context, the Lyon metropolitan area made famous by the riots in Vaux en Velin has been at the forefront of these proposals, supported by the effective cooperation of the urban planning agency of the agglomeration (COURLY). Our workshop presented two proposals that were accepted by the Mayors, one for the City of Saint-Priest, the other for the City of Meyzieu. These two proposals are based on the invention of a large collective space to reshape urban identity. It is these two operations that are in close contact that we present here. the mayor's office (public and symbolic). The existing buildings are the town hall and the post office. Everything is unified by a public porch. This presentation concerns Jean Monet Square in Meyzieu. In Meyzieu, the project is set in the center of the old village. The program consists mainly of housing, the construction of which must simultaneously define a market on the one hand and a public park on the other, although the old building already on the throne on the square is the old town hall turned into a "Palace of Associations". The area dedicated to the market is delimited on the ground floor of the building that separates the square and the park from a row of shops on the side of the square. An isolated residential building completes the urban structure.

DESCRIPTION:
In this case, the project is fully financed by the local social housing authority. The shops on the ground floor are for rent. The municipality participates in the financing of the surface coating of the public space covering the parking of houses and shops and serving twice a week for the market.

- SURFACE present EXTENSION,

TOTAL REPLACEMENT / DISCONTINUITY: The overall dimensions are more than four times the pre- existing surface.

- VOLUME present EXTENSION,

TOTAL REPLACEMENT / DISCONTINUITY: The overall dimensions are more than four times the pre- existing volume.

DESCRIPTION:
This project manages a large urban space in relation to the density of the local urban fabric, even if the structure of this void is of little destruction. The residential units represent 12.000 square metres, the shops on the ground floor have 3.000 square metres and the market square extends over 5.000 square metres. The density is higher in a village whose shape is poorly constituted. This relative disproportion has led to the renovation of the project 30 years later. For this reason, the image of the initial project and the project modified by us are shown side by side.

DESCRIPTION:
This project manages a large urban space in relation to the density of the local urban fabric, even if the structure of this void is of little destruction. The residential units represent 12.000 square metres, the shops on the ground floor have 3.000 square metres and the market square extends over 5.000 square metres. The density is higher in a village whose shape is poorly constituted. This relative disproportion has led to the renovation of the project 30 years later. For this reason, the image of the initial project and the project modified by us are shown side by side.

DESCRIPTION:
In Meyzieu, the surrounding environment consists mainly of village houses. Buildings are lined up along streets and alleys. The project develops two buildings that frame the former town hall turned into a building of associations. This former function has led to shops on the ground floor of the village houses adjacent to the small existing square. The project provides a complementary number of shops and expands the space to create the bi-weekly market. The social housing is built in superstructure to revitalize this city center, because the houses of the village are rather inhabited by the elderly.

DESCRIPTION:
There is no relationship between the organisation of the spaces, the structure and materials of the existing buildings and the new construction. The main linear building is responsible for being the interface between the new square and the public park resulting from the acquisition by the municipality of the house of a local notable. It consists of two laths separated by a distribution void that comes as an extension of the urban space. The logic of implementation and that of the technique known as "coffrage tunnel". The entire construction is carried out with extremely poor materials: reinforced concrete frame, synthetic coating.

DESCRIPTION:
After the Porch of Saint-Priest presented first, this project is the second one to be built from a theoretical position on the pre-eminence of topology over the other protagonists of architectural work: history, economics, technology. The proposed thesis establishes that only the topological organization is able to structure the architect's story. In this, it is the potential form that represents the ἀρχός/ή of the project, in contrast to the τέκτων that would be the construction technique and functional obligations. In developing this urban system, we have chosen to tell the story of the hierarchy of social practices, from their collective aspects to their intimate aspects, crossing the layers of an urban construction. Both from outside and inside, we are confronted with a stratification that allows a clear symbolic interpretation of the destination of space. Since the development of centralbourg has not reached the scale originally planned, we have worked, 30 years after this realization is inhabited, to recompose the layer oriented towards the market square to fracture its monolithic aspect and thus minimize its scale in front of new smaller buildings. On the other hand, the garden side proportionate to its size has simply been renovated.