© Cyrille Lallement
© Cyrille Lallement
© Charly Broyez
© Charly Broyez
© Charly Broyez
AJAP 2016 awardees based in Nancy, Doonam Back and Yann Caclin are the two partners of Architectures Back Caclin. Today, they are completing a senior residence and a social center in the emblematic neighborhoods of Haut-du-Lièvre—known for Zehrfuss’s housing blocks and its panoramic tower—and Borny—designed by Dubuisson—two “housing estates” located respectively at the gateways to Nancy and Metz. Faced with demolitions imposed by the ANRU, the Franco-Korean duo finds reparative responses in the landscapes and everyday uses shaped by their inhabitants.
In Maxéville, within the Greater Nancy metropolitan area, and in anticipation of the demolition of the Panoramic Tower—the tallest in Lorraine—a senior residence rehousing twenty residents is conceived as a hybrid model, combining a residential building with a collective living facility. Generous shared spaces and a rooftop terrace sustain social ties and extend views toward the neighborhood and the forest edges, while the project incorporates a reuse strategy drawing from the tower itself, with bathrooms and railings repurposed.
In Metz, at the heart of the orthogonal grid designed by Dubuisson in 1964, the new socio-educational center continues the neighborhood’s cultural development. With a simple massing, the ground floor accommodates public functions such as dining, community gatherings, and school-related activities. Upstairs, a sequence of more intimate spaces is dedicated to early childhood education, quiet time, and care. On either side, courtyards and gardens offer views of a landscape shaped by towers and slopes. The white, metallic envelope—alternately opaque and transparent—filters views while providing the intimate setting required for these activities. The building’s deliberately discreet presence frees up a planted rooftop terrace visible from all sides, which also acts as a visual extension of the public space. Compensating for what has been destroyed is part of the architects’ broader ambition of pacification.
