Brenac & Gonzalez Twist a 57-Meter Tower into Montpellier's Former Rail Yards

Montpellier's Saint-Roch district sits on 15 hectares of former rail yard, a strip of land wedged between the medieval core and the city's expanding southern edge. For decades the tracks acted as a barrier. The ZAC Saint-Roch masterplan, developed by SERM, set out to stitch the two halves together with a mixed-use neighborhood of offices, retail, housing, and public space. Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés were given the district's tallest commission: a 57-meter residential tower that would double as a landmark for a neighborhood still finding its identity.

What makes Higher Roch Tower genuinely interesting is not its height, which is modest by global standards, but the way it performs as a climate device. Every floor's terrace rotates slightly from the one below, producing a helical silhouette that reads like contour lines on a topographic map. The curving overhangs are not decorative; they are calibrated to the sun's seasonal arc, calculated in parametric software linking Rhino-Grasshopper to Archicad. The result is a tower that looks like it was sculpted by wind but was, in fact, sculpted by shadow.

A Helix Born from Solar Geometry

From the street, the tower's diagonal white exoskeleton catches the eye first. Triangulated bracing wraps the building in a lattice that shifts in density and scale as it climbs. At the base, heavier structural members anchor the form to a stone-colored concrete podium; higher up, the lattice thins as the terraces widen and rotate. The effect is that of a single continuous ribbon spiraling skyward, though in structural reality the system is a series of discrete concrete slabs cantilevered from the central core and braced by a steel exoskeleton engineered by VS-A.

The rotation is not uniform. Each terrace curve adapts to its height and compass orientation, so south-facing overhangs push further out to block summer sun while northern edges pull back to let in diffuse light. The architects ran sun and shadow studies through the winter solstice to confirm that every apartment receives direct light even on the shortest day of the year. It is a convincing demonstration that parametric tools can serve comfort rather than spectacle.

Terraces That Double the Living Space

The outlying terraces effectively double the usable surface of each apartment, a claim that sounds like marketing until you see the decks in person. Clad in Bamboo Resisto Iroko, the terraces are deep enough for dining tables, potted gardens, and shade sails made from 500 square meters of Serge Ferrari's Frontside View 381 textile. The timber soffits overhead give the outdoor rooms a warm ceiling plane that contrasts sharply with the white steel bracing beyond.

At dusk the terraces become inhabited balconies overlooking Montpellier's tiled roofscape. Potted plants soften the mesh safety screens, and the curving geometry means neighbors rarely look directly at one another. Privacy through rotation: a simple idea, well executed. The Mediterranean emphasis on fluid indoor-outdoor living is not just acknowledged here; it is the organizing principle of the entire plan.

The Structural Skin Up Close

Zooming into the facade reveals layers of material logic. White concrete forms the lattice at the base, its variable-scale composition giving a handcrafted texture to what is essentially a parametric grid. Higher up, the bracing shifts to slender white steel arms that crisscross between floors, carrying the visual rhythm of the helix while transferring lateral loads to the core. A gigantic metallic mesh encloses the overhangs, acting simultaneously as fall protection, wind buffer, and visual filter.

The timber soffit panels running under each terrace tie the domestic scale to the structural scale. Walk beneath one and you feel sheltered; step back a block and the timber registers as warm horizontal bands against the white frame. It is a neat trick of dual legibility that keeps the tower from feeling like an engineering exhibit.

Urban Base and District Context

The aerial view clarifies Higher Roch's position in the district. The tower rises from a triangular footprint at the junction of streets converging on the Montpellier-Saint-Roch station. A rectangular podium base faces the station directly, housing shops at ground level and six floors of offices above. The architects describe a two-register concept: the podium addresses the historic city at eye level while the tower above dialogues with the distant upper city and the Pic Saint-Loup beyond.

At the plaza level, mature trees and pedestrian paths connect the tower to the broader City Roch program, which includes a shopping mall and an assisted-living residence. The tower does not stand alone; it crowns a mixed-use ensemble that attempts to generate the street life a former rail yard conspicuously lacks.

Lobbies and Entry Sequence

The ground-floor entry introduces a material palette absent from the exterior. Blue geometric tiles cover accent walls, lending a North African warmth that nods to Montpellier's Mediterranean identity. A double-height lobby is lit by a circular brass pendant hanging beneath a perforated metal ceiling, and textured glass screens filter daylight into the corridor. The transition from the white structural drama outside to the intimate, tactile interior is abrupt and intentional; it signals arrival into a domestic register.

Life Inside the Helix

Inside the 76 apartments, floor-to-ceiling glazing dissolves the boundary between living room and terrace. The units are organized around a central core on each of the 16 residential floors, with angular perimeters that follow the triangular footprint. It is a plan that could easily produce awkward corners, but the generous terrace depths absorb the geometry, turning acute angles into sheltered outdoor nooks rather than wasted interior space.

The mix of tenure is worth noting: 5,560 square meters of open-access housing sit alongside 1,775 square meters of subsidized units, with 3,275 square meters of office space in the podium. Social diversity was designed in from the program stage, not retrofitted as a planning condition. Whether that ambition survives the pressures of the Montpellier housing market is another question, but the architecture at least makes no visible distinction between the two housing types.

Plans and Drawings

The site plans confirm the triangular footprint and its relationship to the surrounding street grid, with a central courtyard carved into the podium. The typical floor plan shows three apartments per level, each with angular perimeters radiating from a compact service core. The section drawing is perhaps the most revealing: it illustrates the podium's horizontal mass anchoring the composition while the tower tapers subtly as it rises, its terraces widening to counterbalance the narrowing floor plates. Underground parking occupies two levels below grade, keeping cars invisible from the public realm.

Why This Project Matters

Tall residential buildings in Mediterranean climates often default to curtain-wall boxes with bolt-on balconies and mechanical cooling. Higher Roch Tower proposes something more labor-intensive but more convincing: a tower whose form is literally derived from the sun's path, whose terraces function as inhabited rooms rather than decorative ledges, and whose mixed-use program actively serves a district that did not exist 20 years ago. The parametric workflow linking Grasshopper to Archicad is not just a technical footnote; it is the reason each floor's curve is specific rather than arbitrary.

The project also raises a question that French urbanism has been circling for a generation: can a tower anchor a new neighborhood the way a church or market hall once did? Brenac & Gonzalez make a credible case. The helix is legible from the highway, from the station platform, and from the medieval streets to the north. It is a landmark that earns its visibility not through sheer height but through the specificity of its silhouette, a form that could only belong to this latitude and this site.

Higher Roch Tower, Montpellier, France. Architects: Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés. Facade engineering: VS-A. Structure: A Verdier. Area: 12,600 m². Completed: 2022. Photography: Sergio Grazia, Stefan Tuchila.

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