n°27 - Roubaix (FR) - E6

Tribute to the in-between: Villas Sarrail in Roubaix

Monograph No.27
73 dwellings and 5 townhouses
Rue du Général Sarrail, Roubaix (FR)
Architect: Bathilde Millet
Client: Pierres & Territoires de France

How to transform a brownfield area, reused in parking in city centre? How to give a new urban dynamic to a forgotten district? How to avoid the scar effect let by the demolition of a former textile factory? How to renovate a district with urban diffused fabric?

The architects, Laurent De Vallée, Bathilde Millet, Antoine Motte, Julien Rousseau and Pierre-Alain Gauthier, Europan 6 winners in Roubaix (FR), proposed to restructure the run-down urban landscape by juxtaposing public spaces with a very urban connotation and a more communal residential zone. The urban project knits the plot back together by a juxtaposition of transversal bands, drawing its inspiration from a typology that is specific to Roubaix.

The process was marked by a high degree of discontinuity and somewhat chaotic development. The team now reduced to Bathilde Millet and Julien Rousseau is commissioned for a series of urban design studies relating to the eastern part of the block. A private developer, Pierre et Territoires de France Nord wants to build a private housing programme near the town centre and choses Bathilde Millet’s team to develop this project. The architect maintains the idea of a new street dividing the block and attempts to restore the typological variety present in the original Europan project. Multiple typologies to generate diversity, multiple entrances to facilitate encounters are the basic principles applied by the architect. Finally, these principles are further amplified in terms of diversity through the work of precise distance between public and private spheres, by the development of a route between the city and residential heart of island, through the treatment of housing extensions and of shared spaces.