Mateo Arquitectura

Work will shortly begin on the construction of the housing blocks in the Andromède district (Toulouse),
near the airport of Toulouse-Blagnac. The site is ready for construction work, which will last 18 months.
The project consists of four volumes built around a central garden that will house 104 dwellings, each
with a terrace or balcony. The four buildings share a car-parking floor, which has a waterproofing system
to prevent future leakage, as this is a wetland area.

Three of the four blocks are built with brickwork lattice, presenting a harder appearance, and the fourth
is built with wood, establishing a contrast with the others.
The underlying premiss of the project is to give the apartments the best orientation, in all cases avoiding
the north. Accordingly, all the dwellings in the block on the north side of the site, whether crossventilated
or corner apartments, have a double orientation.

The building on the north side is the hardest, built with 80% of black materials and 20% of white materials, thereby
marking the urban area, which starts with Avenue Andromède. On the central plot, the proportion is inverted (80%
white and 20% black) in a tendency to a shiny white that reflects the vegetation in the garden. The third volume on
Rue Jacqueline Auriol is grey (50% black, 50% white). The resulting volumes will be lightweight, perceived not as
a continuity of colour but as clouds of pixels, a collection of dots that form a volume.

Opposite the project is a public park, the Cours Pinot, with which the housing project seeks maximum interaction,
continuing into it the garden at its centre. The view from the park is, then, a close-up of the project showing the
three most solid blocks, with a lower, timber-clad building in the background.

More information about this project here.