© Luxigon

Hamonic Masson is envisioning a new Casablanca via the redesign of its financial district, Casa Anfa. The Paris-based firm, which just won a city-sponsored competition to pioneer a transformation of the area, has unveiled big plans for Lot 65-2. The plans respond to questions on the urban scale as well as preservation and sustainability.

“Form and urbanity” underscore the project’s drive for reimagining the links between high-rise entities in the Moroccan city.

© Luxigon

The firm stresses the powerful architectural heritage of Casablanca as a driving force in thinking of the project as a means to bring a new form and new identity – along with heightened attention to biodiversity – in Casa Anfa. 

Hamonic Masson’s proposal for the renewal of Casa-Anfa draws upon the cultural heritage of Morocco in addition to the sustainability and form of the project. Lot 65-2 presents new ways of living for residents in the district, but, more broadly, challenges citizens across Casablanca to reconsider the area as a focal point of the city.

© Luxigon

News Via: Hamonic-Masson

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© Takuji Shimmura

• Architects: Atelier du Pont
• Location: 85500 Les Herbiers, France
• Area: 2880.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Takuji Shimmura

• Associate Architect: Michel Joyau
• Structure Engineering: Arest
• Fluids Engineering: Area
• Construction Economics: ECB
• Acoustics: Serdb
• Landscape Designer: Paula Paysage
• Sustainable Engineering: Plan02

© Takuji Shimmura

History and context

The Community of Municipalities of the Pays des Herbiers was created in 1995. It enables eight municipalities in the region of Vendée to share resources and competencies in the fields of economic development, town planning, environment, and standard of living. Like the rest of the Vendée, the Pays des Herbiers is a rural area with a strong sense of identity. It is also economically very robust and home to numerous companies active at the national level. 

© Takuji Shimmura

Ground Floor Plan

© Takuji Shimmura

The new Hôtel des Communes (Community of Municipalities offices) was built as an extension of the Herbiers City Hall, a mid-19th century mension situated in a public park. The contemporary architecture of the new building provides its citizens with a custom, high-performing tool that reconciles landscape, architectural heritage, and modernity. It is an expression of the region’s territorial influence and of the high level local cooperation. 

© Takuji Shimmura

Landscape Sculpture

A Building that approaches Land Art

The Hôtel des Communes represents a sculptural kind of architecture that approaches Land Art. It is a smart and spectacular building that capitalizes on the strengths of its site – the public park, the trees, and the current city hall – to insert itself gently into the landscape. 

© Takuji Shimmura

Supple and athletic, it coils around the existing trees, surrounding them to preserve them. It pushes up into the sky and outward into the park, finding its place without upsetting the harmoniousness of the place. It slaloms lightly and gracefully, and its skin uses the path of the sun to its best advantage. 

© Takuji Shimmura

Section

© Takuji Shimmura

Despite its size, it only reveals part of its whole. The visible sides, which are proportionate to the surrounding buildings, blend into the urban landscape, while its curves and texture make the building a singular event in the town. As an installation, it hides from view under the reflection of the surrounding landscape on its skin, as if it were a chameleon. 

© Takuji Shimmura

Working among the trees

The intelligence of the building’s form resides in the way it increases the size of the façade and thus the workspaces while reducing the technical areas to their necessary minimum. Offices in the Hôtel des Communes are grouped into compact, effective clusters to create greater work synergies. The ground floor hosts the offices that provide public services (civil registrar, marriage hall, etc.). The spaces on the upper floors were designed to be effective and flexible, on the basis of the principle of modular offices. The curving and counter-curving circulations connect one space to another. They allow people to walk through the building or enter the existing town hall fluidly, with a sense of continuity, all the while remaining immersed in the surrounding park’s greenery.

© Takuji Shimmura

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© José Hevia

• Architects: Peris+Toral.arquitectes
• Location: Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes, Barcelona, Spain
• Architects In Charge: Marta Peris, José Manuel Toral
• Area: 300.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: José Hevia

• Client: BIM/SA
• Collaborators (Students): Izaskun González
• Stracture: Manel Fernández
• Installations: Jaume Pastor
; Eletresjota tècnics associats
• Collaborators: Ana Espinosa, Leticia Soriano
• Construction: Benito Arno e Hijos
• Cost: 168.579 €

© José Hevia

From the architect. In response to both the temporality of the facility and the context where is located, Peris+Toral stands up for a detachable and reusable construction that minimizes the trace on the territory: a scaffolding system as structure and formal solution of the project. 

This temporary facility built a year ago by the Catalan practice Peris+Toral, is part of the provisional urbanization of the Glòries Square in Barcelona. With this project, the studio reasserts a new way of working and enhances its search for new solutions and constructive processes. 

© José Hevia

Section

© José Hevia

The facility is thought to be an information point, an exhibition area about the proposed project of the square and rental point of electric bicycles. Is located in a crossroads of pedestrian circulations; which crosses the square towards the sea-mountain and another which transversely connects the two nearby facilities: nursery oaks and the new pergola. 

Axonometric

Axonometric

In its temporary condition, the construction is subtly integrated into the transformational environment of Glòries Square. Its linear shape, materials and its structural system highlight both their ephemeral character and the idea of permeability. Along these lines, scaffolding acts as a support of the three envelopes necessary to provide habitability to the construction: an impermeable and translucent polycarbonate skin, a shade mesh and a metal mesh as a protection. 

© José Hevia

The areas which host the internal program and services are solved by two structural prefabricated modules of site hut, whereas wood on the pavement and on the transverse thresholds provide warmer areas in the facility. 

© José Hevia

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© Farshid Nasrabadi

• Architects: Sarsayeh Architectural Office
• Location: Isfahan, Isfahan Province, Iran
• Area: 1100.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Farshid Nasrabadi

• Lead Architect: Behnam Sefidi
• Design Assist: Hengameh Akbari
• Contractor: Farhad Bahramipour
• Client : Javad Shakeri

© Farshid Nasrabadi

This project referred to our office when its structure was totally built. And according to client’s demand the ground and basement floor were assigened as commercial spaces and every other levels designed as official saloons with enough flexibility to be divided into different patterns. 

© Farshid Nasrabadi

After visiting the project site one point attracted all attentions and it was the constant green line of trees across the street that they were hiding the most part of all neighbor buildings façade behind itself. But because of our building extreme height it was appearing as a disharmonious spot across the street and trees were unable to hide its face.

© Farshid Nasrabadi

So minimizing this disharmony and adopting our building with its context was the main goal in designing procedure. 

Section

We decided to choose a linear and vertical geometry for the main division of façade as we had this geometry in trees standing across the street. And also we tried to find a way for continuing the greenery of trees on building’s face. After primary division on building facade we assigned some parts as green zones. And by transforming the surfaces to volumes we had some double skin and semi-opened spaces for making greenery in there.

© Farshid Nasrabadi

So with this method not only we had many freshness inside, but also the movement of plants toward outside and running on building face could create some relation between building and its context in people minds.

© Farshid Nasrabadi

We chose brick as main material because of historical characteristic of our city and we used wood as a complementary for having more harmony with environment.

© Farshid Nasrabadi

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