The 360° View Tower

The 360° View Tower represents the end and the beginning of the Brossette block. Seen from the Loire River, its volume heralds all the elements that will be developed there after across the site. Conversely, when viewed from the south, this architecture will complete a succession of spaces and connections that will give the Brossette city block its character. The net volume imagined in the beginning very quickly had to be enlarged and adjusted.

This involved a design that took into account the trees, the perspective from the main axis of the site, the dialog with the system of variable heights of the other buildings and its role as a signal. It contains 79 apartments as well as commercial space on the ground floor. It is located on the northern end of the lot at the corner of the Boulevard G.Doumergue and the Rue F. Albert. Located on the axis of the Brossette courtyards, the building is the northern edge of the Place Brossette.

It stands parallel to the Boulevard G.Doumergue with a setback from the public space ranging from 7 meters to 3 meters (at the intersection of G. Doumergue and F. Albert). On the Rue F. Albert, the building has a setback of 11 meters to 4 meters from the streets (at the intersection of G. Doumergue and F. Albert). The volume is placed in alignment with the Brossett e public space. A commercial space is located at the corner of Boulevard G Doumergue and Rue F. Albert.

This space has a usable surface area of 235 m2, and will take advantage of its privileged position between the quays of the Loire and the Place Brossette to enliven the base of the tower and the adjacent public spaces. The upper floors (G+1 to G+18) contain apartments ranging in size from 1 to 4 bedrooms. The largest apartments take up the upper floors with duplex apartments occupying the top floors (G+17-G+18). The building’s structure (stress-bearing façade + column and beam) allows for great flexibility in floorplans, the distribution of typologies being adaptable according to the requirements of future buyers.

The floor space dedicated to the housing part of the program amounts to 4,821 m2 of usable floor space. The building is the highest of all those comprising the Brossette city block, culminating at 55 meters with 18 stories above the ground floor. The building takes full advantage of its height, opening broadly onto its context and especially onto the Loire River and the city’s historic center. This building serves as a signal for the development. Its form is composed of three strata: the base (Ground-G+6), the intermediate layer (G+7-G+8), the emergent part (G+9-G+18).

The intermediate level and the emergent part are set back, off ering spacious private terraces overlooking this privileged context. The volume narrows as it rises, echoing the polar trees beside it. Each shift in volume corresponds to the height of neighboring buildings, harmonizing its relationship among these variations. Benefiting from its exceptional location on banks of the Loire, 84% of the apartments off er views overlooking the river, the remaining part (16%) being oriented in a southerly direction overlooking the Place Brossette.

Materiality
The smooth brushed aluminum façade gives the building a unified look while capturing the reflections of its context. At night the interplay is inverted and the building is enlivened by the varying uses inside glimpsed through the perforations of the cladding. These also serve to manage the apartments’ exposure to sunshine.

Shutters
The façade is composed of a regular horizontal framework applied to all four façades. The design of this framework is imagined from the interior of the apartments to off er framed panoramic views that take full advantage of the tower’s height and the quality of the context (The Loire River, the historic town center, the Île de Nantes). The magnifi cent perspectives are accentuated by the high and low windows.

The concrete stress-bearing façade is covered in an exterior insulation of mineral wool with a brushed aluminum cladding mechanically fi xed to a secondary metal frame. The framework of the façade is composed of these solid, horizontal and vertical strips alternating with perforated parts in front of the joinery. The perforated sheet metal is fi xed to the front of the lower window, and slides in front of the upper one. The perforated shutter slides vertically (one part upward and one part downward) behind the unperforated aluminum plates.

Framed views
Standing beside the Loire River, the tower rises to a height of 18 floors. The arrangement of the façades from the outside composed of windows on each level, distorts the scale. Inside the apartments, panoramic windows off er vantage points overlooking the Loire and surroundings.

Apartments
Most of the apartments benefit from spacious loggias, extending living areas toward the outside. The flooring of the loggias is composed of poured concrete, whereas the vertical partitions are covered in light gray plaster. The joinery, hidden behind the cladding, is in light gray PVC. The fixed cladding and the sliding shutters guarantee the privacy of loggias and
offer protection from the wind (especially in the apartments on the upper floors).

The Loggias
Each apartment is organized around a large loggia, a genuine extension of the interior living space toward the outside. In summer, these loggias help ensure ventilation of the apartments. They are set back from one floor to the next.

Kaufman & Broad

LAN (lead architect), Abinal & Ropars (architects of lot 2), Fernandez & Serres (architects of lot 6), Base (Landscape architect, ALBDO (Utilities engineers), BETAP and SERBA (Structural engineers), Franck Boutté Consultants (HQE), BMF (Economist), Burgeap (Environmental consultants), Safege (Road Engineering).