Subsidised Housing near Marseille
- Jakob Schoof
The town of Gignac-la-Nerthe is located in the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône, about 20 km northwest of Marseille. Historic natural stone buildings can be found often in this region. Yet, they were previously absent in the residential area bordering the western urban fringe. Here, Régis Roudil and his architectural office designed subsidised housing for eight apartments. Quite untypical to the task, the architects selected limestone of the Vers-Pont-du-Gard type for the two volumes of the ensemble. Rather than in the form of thin facade cladding, it was applied as solid, 32 cm thick masonry. Blocks of tremendous size were used for this purpose: In the exterior walls and the parapets, rising high to visually conceal the building utilities on the roof, they are mostly 210 cm long and 90 cm tall. Only the slab edges and roller shutter boxes are clad in thin, flat panels.
