By Khris Kirk
With the growing population of the world and the
expanding cities, people need places to live. At the beginning of the 20th
century, social housing arose as a means to house the large number of people
moving to large cities from the countryside. Large apartment complexes,
condominiums, and dorm rooms started to pop up everywhere. At the start of this
architecture upbringing, the designs were plain and repetitive. However, after
a while, the buildings started to reflect a more individual appearance. Another
aspect that was a large influence of building these large apartment complexes
was the cost of building them. Jean Nouvel’s Nemausus in Nimes, France, is a
prime example of individual style of architecture and fairly cheap cost of
building.
Jean Nouvel was appointed to design a social
living building by the mayor of Nimes. He started the project with the idea of
giving the resident the maximum space to live in, and to make the apartment
more functional in the way the resident actually uses the space. Before Nouvel
designed his apartment complex, there was a method designing social housing
that made the space not as comfortable for the resident. The bathrooms had no
natural lighting; there were hallways, and tight spaces throughout the rooms.
Nouvel thought these preconceived ideas of design were wrong and felt the need
to design towards the liking of the resident. Therefore, he designed his social
housing with the max amount of space and tons of natural lighting.
He went about making the max amount of space by
designing the apartment without walls. The most common design throughout the
apartment complex has one central shaft in the middle of the apartment that
houses restrooms, water and heating, and storage space. Otherwise there is a continuity
of space through the whole apartment. There is no defining line between public
and private. Another way of making the space appear larger is having the north
and south facades having walls of glass and movable, industrial doors. By
having the minimalistic apartment, it allows for the tenants to create a space
more personal to them.
Continuing on the minimalistic idea, Nouvel
designed the whole building with concrete and prefabricated materials. The
walls and structure of the building are made of concrete, which allows for the
other elements of the building to be prefabricated materials like the fire
station doors on the south façade. By having the walls and support be concrete,
it allows for 30 percent more space within the apartments and saves money on
the building costs.
Another aspect that was kept minimal was the
decoration inside the apartments. There are none. All the walls within each
apartment were left blank, showing the concrete. This makes the apartments appear
unfinished, when they are complete. Nouvel wanted this idea to stay true
through all the apartments that he made the tenants sign a contract that says
they are not allowed to put anything on the walls or floors like wallpaper or
carpet. However, the tenants rebelled and attacked the walls of their home with
wallpaper and carpets. They felt the need to personalize their homes, and make
the apartments feel less like a prison and more of an inhabitable space. Another
down side to the apartment complete is that even though there was a lot of
savings that went into building the Nemausus, the tenants have to pay 30
percent more for rent because they have 30 percent more living space.
Overall, Nouvel has created a very well designed
apartment complete by focusing on his minimalistic idea and making the
apartment work best for the tenants.
Links:
Nemausus
Flexible Housing
Jean Nouvel-Nemausus
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