Get the best of Domus straight to your inbox!

Modular apartments

PPA Architectures designed 50 modular timber apartments within a social housing project in the northern districts of Toulouse, contributing to a more functional neighborhood development.

Architectural firm PPA Architectures realized a housing project for the disadvantaged population of the northern districts of Toulouse, in a contribution to the development of a more generous and mixed city.

PPA Architecture, 50 modular timber apartments, 2016

The objective was to create a new pleasant building that could be inserted in the urban context without interfering with the existing buildings. To design the structure as comfortable as possible for its future residents, PPA decided to use timber modular construction systems which would achieve several objectives. The new building had reorganize the surrounding collective areas by offering new practical and ornamental spaces replacing the existing ones.

Maintaining the fluidity of domestic routes throughout the site, the architects tried to optimize the functional organisation, like repositioning services and equipment facilities – mailboxes, spaces for two-wheeler parking and selective waste sorting – and reorganising the means of access. Finally, they tried to minimize the overlooking issue and north-oriented apartments, while efficiently organising internal service paths, in an overall compactness of the building.