Les Jardins - Appartement Camas
This renovation project is located in the Camas neibourghoud in Marseille, which links Place Jean Jaurès and Blancarde train station.
This district is part of a process of urban expansion that began in the 19th century. The district is mainly made up of long, orthogonal blocks, each around 30 meters wide and 100 meters long. The depth of the plots forming these blocks creates vast gardens within them, most of which are occupied by ground-floor residents.
Each landing serves two single-oriented flats, one overlooking the street and the other the gardens. Here, the flat is on the 3rd floor, with a view over the gardens and the depth of the block.
This is the view that greets us, with its orange and olive trees, magnolias and yukas.
The flat is composed of adjoining rooms. A long borrowed-light corridor leads to a kitchen, bedroom and living room on the front side. The bathroom and a "dark room" are on the technical side, as is traditional in this type of building.
The kitchen worked as a reception room and was far away from the living room. One of the issues of the project was to move this room to the living area and create a small children's bedroom in its place.
The structural interventions are minor, but necessary. They aim to make the space more fluid and brighter : moving and removing doors to let light and warmth into the back of this mono-oriented dwelling, creating new sights around the flat. Fixed windows above doors contribute to the overall luminosity.
The layout is designed to make the space more orderly and clearer to read. The corridor disappears to create order and symmetry, centered around an imposing faded blue piece of furniture.
It becomes the project's point of balance.
Designed around a partition belonging to the flat's former "dark room", it sequences, rhythms, masks and then reveals the uses. It contributes to the poetry of the place.
It's a visual act in itself, becoming the background of everyday life.
It's a bookcase, a picture rail, a lamp, a china cabinet.
Each room preserves a trace of the memory of the place, a rough door, walls plastered by the first masons, floor tiles found under layers of tiling and cement.
The colours in the flat are the same as those found in the street.
Marseille blue-grey, terracotta, sun-washed colours.
All the elements were built in situ for the project, so the transoms, cupboards and door handles were made on site by the craftsmen and contribute to the silent atmosphere of the place.
