A happy rainbow over the city: today, eight colourful buildings embody the urban ambition of the new Euro-metropolis.
Bringing people, neighbourhoods and functions closer together: these are some of the missions of architecture. Missions brilliantly fulfilled by the monumental ensemble NoLiStra (for NOuveau LIeu in STRAsbourg). Designed by the LAN Architecture firm, it connects the city centre to the residential district of Neudorf, formerly located outside the city but now integrated into the agglomeration.
Even better: NoLiStra is an important urbanisation element in the important cross-border project Deux-Rives, which unites Strasbourg and Kehl in Germany, thus creating a new Eurometropolis around the Rhine. The two cities are already linked by a Franco-German tramway, making it possible to erase borders and bring places, populations and energies closer together.
This brightly coloured district offers a mix of residential units, offices, commercial spaces (food shops, essential services, etc.), a hotel and private gardens. The whole is also ideally located for urban tourism. In short, an attractive site brimming with life, with a strategic location, which allows you to work, live and have fun, in particular by creating porosity between public and private spaces.
Strasbourg urban island © Charly Broyez
By its size and ambition, NoLiStra is a fantastic example of the ecological, democratic and lively city emerging today. Its housing responds to current social diversity. Every one can imagine living there for the long term, even if family situations change: the load-bearing walls make it possible to free up its interior bays, leaving open all the possibilities for the development of spaces. In terms of accessibility, special attention has also been paid to social cohabitation (through several programmes from the purchase of social housing to intermediate systems). Here, as everywhere else, it is from diversity that human wealth is born.
Towards an ecology of well-being
The open and accessible central garden connects the whole to the rest of the city via the surrounding parks. This dense island offers privacy to the inhabitants but also connects them to urbanity and collective life. Insular but perfectly connected to the rest of the city. As for the choice of glorious colours, it finds its justification in the rich history of the city of Strasbourg.
Sustainability, vegetation, light, meeting places: the project intends to go beyond the objectives of an ecology of performance to move towards an ecology of well-being. To feel good, at home and in your neighbourhood.
Tags: Deux-Rives, LAN architecture, Neudorf, Strasbourg
