Located in the middle of Mile-Ex, in the Marconi district, on the corner of Alexandra Street and Alexandra Avenue, Queen Alix fits in with the diversity of this heterogeneous neighborhood. The project, inspired by this community of artists, professionals, and families, enhances the quality of urban life and turns heads with its disarming sobriety and textured shell.
The project’s integration, diverse housing typologies, and participation in the neighborhood’s dynamic, strives for a balance between private and public space. The experience of pedestrians is enlivened by a first floor occupied by a local business and the private entrances which have a street frontage. A transition space covered with vegetation adapted to urban conditions marks a boundary between the street right of way and the residents. It is thus at the corner of the block that the residents and the neighborhood meet and exchange, for the time of a coffee.
The project’s volumetry is a distinctive architectural response to integrate the mezzanines authorized by the regulations. The building assumes a monolithic treatment, with the mezzanine’s cut-out crown, to lighten the general volume.
The glossy and textured brick prism is worked to express a refinement in the treatment of openings and loggias. The volume is consistent with the template of the industrial buildings in the neighborhood, while keeping the rhythm of the openings. The artisanal brick finish and its metallic effect provide texture and changing luminosity depending on the sunlight.
The strategy of implementation takes advantage of the orientation by creating an interior courtyard flooded with light and isolated from the urban effervescence. The silver metallic cladding and texture work, combined with the southern orientation, gives the space a luminous sobriety.
In addition to the ground arrangements that combine plants and urban furniture, Queen Alix is crowned with terraces with large planting boxes and green roofs. Over and above greening strategies, the redevelopment of a disused site located near all urban services and infrastructures is a necessary part of a sustainable approach.
By taking advantage of a rigid normative framework, the volumetric strategies, the richness of the materials and the response to the context of Queen Alix demonstrate that the coherence of an architectural project represents an opportunity to offer quality living environments that combine cohabitation, intimacy, and participation in the urban dynamic.
