Lyon is located at the confluence of two rivers: the Saône and the Rhône. And where these two rivers physically merge in the south is a neighborhood called La Confluence:
A former industrial area and urban renewal project since 1999, La Confluence is now home to world-class architecture, a broad mix of uses, and a club called Le Sucre.
The most important piece of architecture is probably the Musée des Confluences, which was designed by the Austrian firm Coop Himmeb(l)au. It is situated at the very southern tip of La Confluence.
And at the very south end of the museum is this column:
It feels like the exact right place for a column like this.
This skinny 8-story building caught my eye in the Place des Terreaux in Lyon. I think a lot about these sort of small infill buildings because it is generally not how we build, today, in Toronto. But it’s a workhorse of a “fabric building”, and I can think of many streets that would be made better if only we encouraged this kind of built form. Truthfully, it’s probably most streets.
I'm so predictable. This is the kind of house that tends to grab my attention: modern design, relatively small footprint (~7.8m x 12.3m), narrow street (~4m), and panoramic views (of Seoul). But what does it take to actually build a house like this in an urban fabric as dense as Seoul's?
If you read TIUM Architect's description (using Google Translate for those of us who don't speak Korean), you'll see that the house was built out of concrete and steel, but that concrete trucks couldn't stage on the narrow and dead-end street.
So what they ended up having to do was build a 100-meter concrete conveying pipe (~328 feet) and staging somewhere else. It was such a pain in the ass that they only wanted to do this for the foundations. The rest of the house was built out of steel. (I think because of the clear spans that they wanted.)
Sometimes small infill projects aren't as simple as they may seem. In this case, the lot size is 92 m2. The building footprint is 51.53 m2 (56% lot coverage). And the total floor area is 136.52 m2.
Photo: Lee Hanul via ArchDaily