Amelie

The site, in Amelie les Bains, located in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southern France is dramatic. The clients, in conjunction with the local Mayor and community needed a discrete way of building several hundred car parking spaces for the visitors to this small spa town without them being visible or imposing themselves on the delicate townscape of the town. The development would be also involve the design of 90no new apartments for varying user groups and the creation of new public spaces.

The proposed scheme, submitted for planning approval, involves the creation of a ‘two tier’ scheme with the new residential accommodation screening all the car parking from view.

The lower tier of accommodation is four stories high and designed to link both visually and physically with the architecture of the town. Traditional rendered buildings have been designed to provide a backdrop to a new public plaza, the buildings planned in a crescent to reflect the old road pattern and the topography of the site. A new external ‘grand staircase’ sweeps across the elevation of the new buildings and allows access from the plaza of the old town to the top of this four storey architectural plinth.

The plinth creates a new viewing terrace. a continuation of the pedestrian route and also the base level for the ‘upper tier’ of 3no new apartment buildings of more contemporary design.

The apartment buildings increase in height to 6no stories and rise up through the site in a sweeping arc following the line of the spire of the nearby church and the established development densities of the town. It is important that the development massing of the town is continued as the scheme will be seen from a distance and its size must not be seen to be conflicting to established patterns.