The “evolutionary” building recycles housing over a lifetime

Nothing a priori distinguishes this brand new white cubic building, with “fully modular” housing, from its neighbors.

“What makes the building scalable is invisible, but it is the first operation in housing to this extent scalable in France,” assures Florent Lemaire, executive director of Arkéa Flex, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, which patented the concept.

Designed as an office building, the co-ownership has large platforms on each floor, without an interior load-bearing wall, acoustic partitions and a technical floor through which fluids and electrical wires pass.

“This means that we can place water points wherever we want, and transform a bedroom into an independent studio, a kitchen into a bedroom or bathroom, throughout the life of the building.” specifies Mr. Lemaire.

Locations for landing doors and stair openings allow apartments to be joined or divided, like Legos, as needed, while on the roof, portions of terraces can be exchanged between owners.

With a "technical additional cost" of only 25 euros excluding taxes per square meter compared to "100 euros in the first versions", the designers hope to develop their concept on an industrial scale.

“This project was decided under the previous mandate but we find the concept interesting,” recognizes Cathy Savourey, deputy for town planning at the town hall of Tours, recalling that the City now requires developers “to integrate from the start into their operations the possibility of transforming a multi-storey car park into offices or housing.

“What is important is to see if in ten years some owners will have mobilized the concept and transformed their homes,” she adds.

“Moving home”

Some developers have already integrated “reversible” architecture into their DNA for several years, which allows the use of a building to be modified.

This is the case of OGIC, which has transformed prisons, hospitals and even a water tower into offices, businesses and housing, and sells apartments with "a portable room" that can be bought or sold.

For new buildings, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal promised “reversible building permits” on Wednesday.

“Haussmannian buildings can accommodate shops and offices. They are already much more scalable than certain recent buildings,” underlines Sébastien Le Goascoz, president of Arkéa Flex, eager to “pursue the concept” of the baron.

The group is particularly targeting the social landlord market, "where 45% of housing is under-occupied while there are 2,6 million requests".

By designing a "progressive" building from its construction, the objective is also to reduce as much as possible the cost of its future transformation to avoid demolition and reduce the carbon footprint, in a sector which already represents 18% of gas emissions in greenhouse effect.

A student residence could thus be transformed into a senior residence then into family accommodation.

“The solutions for flexible housing are known, but the concept had fallen a bit into oblivion,” recalls architect Sabri Bendimérad, for whom the idea of ​​“moving home has come back in force with Covid, when people wanted to push the walls".

“There is such tension today on the market that no one wants to move even though there are a lot of recompositions within families,” analyzes sociologist Yankel Fijalkow, researcher at the Center for Research on 'habitat.

For Antoine Desbarrières, director of the Qualitel association, which promotes the quality of housing, modular housing responds "fully to social aspirations and the challenge of low-carbon construction, even if having a bathroom above a bedroom poses technical difficulties in terms of acoustic comfort.

“The concept has yet to find its clientele,” he continues, “which undoubtedly also implies a change in mentalities.”