A bioclimatic tower house on a sloping lot
What the track asks
Practical test of the 2024 first session (June 2024). A single brief: design a tower building following the principles of bioclimatic architecture, with apartments of differing sizes — one type up to 65 sqm, a second between 65 and 120 sqm, a third above 120 sqm. The value of the brief lies entirely in the site data, which is not background but design constraint. The lot is rectangular with its short sides running along the north-south axis, and the access road arrives on the short side: the geometry therefore forces the long fronts to face east and west — the hardest orientations to control bioclimatically. On top of that the lot slopes at 20% from the road, which in a tower immediately becomes a question of how the building meets the ground and where the entrance level sits. The combination of sharply differentiated apartment sizes, vertical development and imposed orientation is the real exercise: how the three types are distributed up the tower, and how the east-west fronts are treated, decide the test — and the requirement to indicate materials in section prevents stopping at the layout diagram.
Required drawings
Preliminary sketches and reasoning; site plan with landscaping at 1:200; a concise report setting out the design choices; plans at 1:100/1:50; elevations at 1:100/1:50; at least one section through the stair core with the chosen materials indicated; a constructional and/or technological detail at 1:20.
Regulations this track calls into play
Editorial anchoring: the rules a well-prepared candidate should have in hand for this theme, each with its current status.
This theme, across the archive
The same brief seen by theme: every other past exam that asked for it, and the norm kit they share.
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