Les Bogues du Blat

Such is the case in Le Blat, a sparse rural conglomeration on the hills around Beaumont. Here, a forward-looking local administration, with the support of the Développement Social et Territoires program of the Fondation de France, asked architects Patrick Bouchain, Sébastien Eymard, Loïc Julienne, and Jean Lautrey to rethink the historic terraces as an infrastructure upon which to develop a new social housing project. The aim was to take into account the residents’ desire for traditional detached houses, while at the same time promoting the collective and organic development of this delicate landscape. The architects came up with a prototype for a scalable, adaptable timber-frame house, inspired by the form of the chestnut burrs that cover the landscape in the fall, after which the project is named. Each house projects out from a single, private terrace at one end, and, suspended on pilotis at the other, stretches out over further terraces, which can be cultivated cooperatively. The buildings are developed with the direct participation of its future residents, who can customize their living space to their needs. Beyond architecture, the project also devised alternative economic models for social housing. The units can either be rented at a fixed price or acquired through a financing program which, in agreement with the contracting authority, allows residents to progressively attain ownership of the unit. A first cluster of six houses was built between 2013 and 2017, and can grow incrementally to meet future demands, through a close-knit participative process driven by the municipality. This project was a stepping stone in the development of the New Patrons paradigm and set a valuable precedent for a creative interpretation of art patronage reaching beyond the realm of fine arts into the more mundane terrains of architecture and territorial planning.

Text: Mirko Gatti