The Sites: the Making of Sustainable Habitability

2007: Chanteloup les Vignes
Site area and making of the project N°1

COLLECTION MANIFESTE: LE PROJET N°1

Location: Chanteloup les Vignes
The town of Chanteloup les Vignes will host the Collection Manifeste’s first sustainable housing project, to be designed by Hermann Kaufmann. The project, an urban lodge, will be an instrument of the eco-development project launched by Chanteloup as part of the Major Town Project supported by OIN Seine Aval.
Chanteloup-les-Vignes, a town of 9544 people located in a loop of the Seine in the north-east of the Yvelines region between Poissy and Cergy-Pontoise, includes the la Noé designated development area [ZAC], an estate of 1829 social housing units. This ZAC, which represents 60% of the town’s housing, 74% of the population, 60 different nationalities, 24% unemployment, is a concentrate of all the problems associated with financial and social hardship.

This specific context and the local council’s political determination underpin the choice of public initiative in favour of social and urban development. Chanteloup les Vignes has been awarded one of the French government’s Major Town Projects (GPV), which aim to bring about a social, urban and architectural transformation that will not only give its population better living conditions but also a status and identity, within a fast changing region.

Programme

Urban lodge – community centre in Chanteloup-les-Vignes

For the first project of the Collection Manifeste, the organisers have chosen a programme that provides optimum access to as many people as possible, whether locals or specialist visitors, in other words an urban lodge, a small accommodation and lecture centre. The lodge will be open to the public (ecotourism networks) but also to people and businesses associated with the Chanteloup development projects: the Sustainable Materials hub, the Town’s eco-development projects, the environmental and urban regeneration of the loop, and of course the development of the permanent collection of 21st-century architecture.

The programme, covering an area of some 300 square metres, includes accommodation for students or groups (double rooms and dormitories) and a meeting and exhibition room. The lodge and meeting room will be used for working groups and workshops, and also for cultural events. In design and building methods, the project will provide a model for economy of resources:

• use of local renewable energy resources,
• rational use of the land and its geo-morphological features,
• materials chosen to match the characteristics of the programme.

The architect has complete freedom in the design of the architectural project –
including the exterior spaces – subject to the regulations applicable on the site.

Hermann Kaufmann’s project

The project designed by the Austrian architect will be «85% passive» (85% renewable energies: solar power, solar absorbers and heating with «pellets «).

A European tender invitation has been issued for the selection of companies to handle the wood-system and technological aspects of the construction process (prefabricated frames, insulating sandwich panels, plantation roof, passive systems).

2008 timetable

The Cité and Epamsa will run tours at certain key moments of the construction: mounting/assembly of the timber construction system, installation of the passive systems.

The Chanteloup-les-Vignes house will be delivered in spring 2009.