Shall We Sit Together?

Studio Abroad Fall, 2022

High Pass

Arles: Sustainable Commons Program: Housing for 250 Instructors: Farshid Moussavi & Hanif Kara

This project approaches the climate crisis and the responsibility of embodied carbon reduction seriously through a careful employment of existing steel and the local resources of Arles, France. Sustainability is not only a finishing label but integrated in the construction process and in the daily objects of communal life. The housing complex exploits steel and earth for its own construction, recycles construction waste, mediates microclimates, and offers diversity in encounters among the 250 long-term and short-term residents.

Just as in the materiality of the building, a close relationship forms among the elements, from tree, soil, wood, earth, to clay and fiber; so does the landscape of tables acroess the three proposed cluster types from the unit to the campus scale cultivate a place for intergenerational care and living.

The concept takes inspiration from an immersive semester in the city of Arles, where large scale outdoor communal dining is not only normal for festivals but also for everyday life. The architecture takes on a form such that it accommodates a new construction method as well as the traditional local lifestyle. With the juxtaposition of crossgenerational and cross-temporal resident types in the program, the project further challenges existing housing solutions through a simple invitation: “shall we sit together?”

Construction Methods and Architectural Implications

Sitting on site, Gustav Eiffel’s disassembled exhibition hall presents sufficient steel members for the scale of the project. The proposal thus mines the existing steel as the new bones for the buildings as well as material for integrated furniture desigin.

Furthermore, the open site presents abundant subsoil suitable for cob construction. A reinvention of traditional cob, CobBauge (shown left) is good with thermal insulation, lateral structural stability, and typically used for 1-2 story buildings. CobBauge is an earth and clay heavy construction material that takes advantage of the availability of subsoil in our landscape. Often times, the material for cob construction is directly sourced from the building site.

Typically prepared and assembled under a temporary tent, in order to best maintain consistent moisture and quality throughout the construction, the material’s construction process is prioritized in this project, given the availability of existing steel, and inspires the large shed to become permanent. The open steel shed hosts the production of CobBauge, used in the strutucal and thermal exterior walls. Once the structure is completed, the central atrium is reprogrammed for communal living and gives new meaning to the shed.

Gradient of Clay

The ventilated porcelain facade conceals the thickness of the low-carbon materials but echoes symbolically through its clay content. The tiles animate the buildings throughout the day and seasons as they reflect the dynamic light in Arles.

Architecture from the Details

The project responds to the studio prompt “Sustainable Commons“ in two ways. First, reusing the existing steel members in as many instances as possible and sourcing local materials for insulation and finishes, such as European Larch native to the Alps and regional industrial sunflower waste, reduce the project’s embodied carbon. Second, the project reuses left-over timber formwork for community amenities such as tables and gardens. The program invites inhabitants to live in community sustainably.