Gréasque housing

At Gréasque, a former mining village on the north slope of the Chaîne de l'Étoile, PAN Architecture places 35 council dwellings on the site of the old 1955 wine cooperative. The operation takes down the obsolete buildings but keeps the plane trees, the mature high-stem trees and the shared gardens to the west. The answer is a skin: a timber exoskeleton wraps the volumes, durable, tying the scheme to the surrounding Provençal fabric, pale renders and canal tiles, and to its landscape. Of the 35 homes, 14 are social, with market and social housing kept clearly apart. The whole looks for the right density without breaking the reading of the village.