Higher Roch Tower by Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés
Text description provided by design studio. On the edge of the historic city, the ZAC St Roch, a territory conquered on the rails, promotes the emergence of a new animated, open, mixed and sustainable district. Ideally located in the immediate vicinity of the SNCF train station, the Comédie and the historic center, this vast operation developed by SERM (Société d’Équipement de la Région de Montpellier) covers 15 hectares and will soon receive the EcoCité label.
In this urban puzzle under development, lot III occupies a particularly strategic and privileged place, because, with its height of 50 meters, it symbolizes the gateway to the new district and as such must link two urban histories: that of the historic center and that of this new center turned towards the future, a vector of a unique real estate offer. A challenge!
A well-tempered signal in the heart of Montpellier, the emblematic Higher Roch tower is one of the components of this vast program on lot III of the ZAC, a program called City Roch (12,600m²) comprising a 3480m² R+6 office building (Roch Office), a 1780m² commercial base (Roch N’store), and a SO ROCH assisted housing building (1776m²). The Higher Roch tower comprises 76 housing units distributed over 16 floors for a surface area of 5560m². SOGEPROM-PRAGMA and VINCI Immobilier, in co-promotion, are carrying out the project signed by the Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés architectural firm.
Together, they have worked tirelessly to achieve multiple mixes, or “poly-mix”: functional, of course, but also social and generational.
The design of the mineral base of City-Roch echoes the historic, low-rise city. The contemporary city, densified in height, is answered by the tower with its undulating forms and whose interior-exterior porosity and reconnection with the vegetation are subtly worked.
The first register on which the architects have worked, which addresses the historic city, the lower city, is materialized by a concrete base of stone color, with variable heights. Its development at the foot, like a ribbon of stone, and its architectural orthogonality bring together all the programs that make up the block. It integrates a base of shops and the R+6 office building facing the station.
The second register, which is addressed to the distance, to the upper city, whose geometry changes, becomes free and organic. This is the Higher Roch tower, which contains 76 apartments spread over 16 levels. The undulating forms of its floors and terraces, which recall the curves of levels, are stacked and successively offset. These overhangs are connected to each other by a giant metal mesh.
The dwellings have been designed with the climate in mind; it is a Mediterranean tower that values the uses and fluidity between inside and outside thanks to the presence of very generous terraces.
Thus, the outdoor spaces are designed in continuity as living rooms, generously sized, between light and shade.
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