Trading gossip and greens: Boréal by Tétrarc.

There is something reminiscent of a terrace of old city townhouses, with Boréal - a mixed development of private and social housing in Nantes, France. The formal references to earlier housing typologies seem appropriate, but might just give a misleading impression of the block. These flats and duplex apartments are radical in some regards, particularly in their ambitions to promote a modern, dignified lifestyle with qualities of neighbourliness more usually associated with the past. Dwellings are planned around a nucleus of kitchen bathroom, toilets and spiral staircase in the duplex condition. Each dwelling has a greenhouse which is arranged as an extension of the living area, and is externally manifest as a second façade to the entire building. This provides significant energy reduction benefits to the apartments, effectively giving them a tropical microclimate! In the duplex condition, the greenhouse creates quality, double height space, more like a winter garden than a mere greenhouse. External circulation elements clad in a playful way provide sculptural interest to what would otherwise be a plain façade. Allotment gardens replace what Modernists might have left as wind-swept communal space at ground level. It is here where the architect Tétrarc hopes will become a social space where gossip and vegetables are freely traded as some of life's simple pleasures. Words: Christopher C. Hill