Share to
Voltige II
By : Atelier Chaloub Architectes
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 17th edition
Discipline : Architecture
Categories : Residential Building / Apartment & Condo ≥ 10 storeys : Bronze Certification
Voltige II:
Le Belvédère is the second phase of a 5-building mixed-use project in the heart of Montreal’s Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough. Due to its proximity to a major highway and various public transport hubs, the site was granted a zoning variance in 2017 to allow densified, transit-oriented development, responding to the housing shortage in the city of Montreal.
The Belvédère is located in a zone where there is a shortage of housing.
In a zone where immediate neighbors do not exceed 6 stories in height, the height allocated to the project stands out significantly, with the buildings visible from afar. Their stature makes them emblematic as one enters the city of Montreal from Highway 15 heading south, and is therefore fundamental to its aesthetic concept. Each building would be treated as a multi-faceted object with no specific façade hierarchy. The design goal is to populate the site with intriguing, dynamically articulated objects, unified by a simple palette of colors and materials.
.
In this second phase, zoning permits the construction of a 21-storey mixed-use building, and the design brief aimed to maximize efficiency and performance within the zoning limits. Project planning began by setting various benchmarks to be achieved in terms of optimal floor size, unit sizes, circulation and common spaces, resulting in a large footprint for the tower on a commercial base. The challenges encountered with efficiency-driven housing projects lie in concealing the inherent requirements of repetition and, in this case, size. The speculative solution explored translates into various sculptural articulations that oscillate between external qualities and programmatic conditions. The aim is for the building to give the impression of being made up of different parts, presenting itself differently at each corner. The interplay of color, contrast, volume and materials, all within strict programmatic constraints, results in a building that maintains a variety of relationships with the ground, the public, its users and the region.
.
The first floor occupies a larger footprint and forms a corner condition of the master plan, framing the entrance from busy Sauvé Street to the heart of the project. The plinth acts as a physical barrier separating the busy boulevard from the intimate residential street and central park. It is programmatically different from the rest of the tower, but is governed by a holistic design concept that reveals programmatic cues in a part-to-whole composition. The second floor houses a roof terrace above the plinth, accessible via a glazed lounge raising the tower above. The building consists of over 200 units optimized for a diverse community, ranging from small studios to larger family dwellings.
With rapidly rising construction costs paralleling the planning phase of the project, there was a challenge to adapt the envelope to reduce costs through an economy of material selection and construction methods. The solution was to limit trades and maximize precast concrete panels as the cladding system, through which we created customized mixes to build two-tone panels without changing materials. The concrete-clad structure is lightened by maximum windows and the use of aluminum cladding to give depth and brilliance to the building’s volume. Colors are limited to tones to make the building neutral, with the exception of copper-colored aluminum panels that are used conservatively to reveal important elements within the project.
Collaboration
