rue royale architectes Sets Four Gridded Social Housing Blocks Around a Shared Garden in Bron

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This article covers topics related to Housing, Landscape Design, Co-Housing, Social Housing, Housing Block, Modular Housing, Building Design. In Bron, near Lyon, a strict concrete grid filled with timber-lined loggias gives 5,791 m² of social housing a calm, generous relationship with its landsca

Social housing in the Lyon suburbs rarely gets to be this composed. In Bron, rue royale architectes, working with unes architectes and landscape architects Atelier du Trèfle for the client Alliade Habitat, has completed Racine Carrée: 5,791 m² of homes split across four mid-rise blocks that sit around a shared garden. The name translates as "square root." It fits a scheme built from one disciplined square module, repeated, rotated and recombined.

The architects describe the concept as a meeting between the spatial permutations of a Rubik's Cube and the softer logic of the site. That could easily have been a slogan. Here it actually produces something. A pale concrete frame sets a rigorous grid, and timber-lined loggias fill its cells. The result reads as both rational and domestic. What interests us is how the grid becomes inhabitable depth instead of surface pattern, and how the landscape is treated as the project's shared living room rather than leftover space between buildings.

A Grid That Permutes Instead of Repeats

Facade of white concrete columns framing timber-lined balconies with slatted railings, seen between trees under wispy clouds

Upward view of the concrete grid facade with deep loggias, vertical timber boards and slatted balustrades against a clear blue sky

Facade grid of pale concrete frames holding timber-clad loggias with slatted balustrades against an overcast sky

Look at the façade long enough and the Rubik's Cube reference starts to make sense. The concrete columns and slab edges form an unbroken frame, and inside each bay the timber surfaces, slatted balustrades and recesses shift position. The frame stays fixed while the infill rotates. That is a smart way to give a large housing volume variety without abandoning the economy of a repeated structural bay.

The palette is restrained: off-white concrete, warm vertical boards and a fine metal rhythm of railings. Seen from below, the depth of the loggias does most of the work. Shadows carve the grid into a three-dimensional lattice, so the elevation changes with the sun far more than its few materials would suggest.

Loggias as Outdoor Rooms

Ground and first floor loggias with square concrete piers, slatted balustrades and vertical timber cladding above a mulched planting bed

Recessed balcony corner with vertical larch cladding, a flush storage door and a slim railing overlooking trees under soft cloud

Angled close view of concrete columns and slatted balcony balustrades receding up the facade, with timber glimpsed inside the loggias in pale light

The loggias are the real social argument of the project. They are deep, framed on three sides and lined in timber, so they feel like rooms with one wall removed rather than balconies bolted to a slab. A flush storage door tucked into the cladding of one corner is a small detail, but it tells you the designers expected residents to actually use these spaces for bikes, plants, chairs and everyday clutter.

The slatted balustrades filter views without sealing residents in. From the street you read a lively depth; from inside you get privacy and a frame of treetops. In social housing, where private outdoor space is often the first thing value-engineered away, this generosity matters.

Circulation in the Open Air

Covered balcony walkway with vertical timber cladding, slatted railings and sun stripes falling across the terracotta floor tiles

Person walking along a covered balcony walkway beside vertical timber cladding, with slatted shadows falling across pale paving tiles

Empty room with timber-framed glazed doors open to a terrace, where a person looks out over distant treetops in afternoon sun

Some of the circulation runs along covered exterior walkways, where sunlight passes through the slatted rails and paints stripes across terracotta and pale tiles. These are thresholds, not corridors: places where neighbours pass one another in daylight, with timber on one side and the garden on the other.

Inside, timber-framed glazed doors open straight onto the terraces, so the apartment and its outdoor room work as one continuous space in good weather. The view out is of canopy rather than of the next building, which says a lot about how carefully the blocks are spaced.

The Garden as Common Ground

Courtyard view of pale concrete apartment blocks with timber-lined loggias above a planted garden and young trees in soft morning light

Row of apartment buildings with timber-clad loggias seen across a mown lawn at low evening sun, with benches under the trees

Courtyard corner of the apartment block with framed timber balconies, young trees and a wooden bench on mulched ground

The four blocks hold a planted courtyard between them, and Atelier du Trèfle has resisted the urge to over-design it. Mown lawn, wilder meadow patches, mulched beds, young trees and simple timber benches make up a landscape that will get better as it grows in. Right now the trees are saplings; in a decade they will soften the grid considerably, which seems to be the intention.

This is where the project's stated duality is most persuasive. The architecture keeps strict order while the ground plane wanders. Neither tries to imitate the other, and the contrast gives both more character.

Reading the Blocks from the Street

Side elevation of a rendered apartment block with stacked timber-lined loggias, overlooking low industrial sheds and street trees under a pale sky

Street view of two stepped apartment blocks with open timber loggias and young saplings in wooden supports at dusk

Side elevation of a pale concrete block with recessed timber-lined balconies, young staked trees in the foreground under an overcast sky

From the surrounding streets the scheme sits within an ordinary suburban context of low industrial sheds, street trees and a nearby park. The stepped massing of the blocks breaks what could have been a monolithic frontage into a sequence of distinct volumes at a reasonable domestic scale.

Even the side elevations keep the stacked loggias, so there is no blank back. That consistency is not trivial: housing projects often concentrate their design effort on one face and abandon the rest. Here every side is treated as a façade.

Architecture Seen Through Foliage

Corner of a five-storey block with concrete frame and recessed timber balconies, seen through young trees and wild planting

Mid-rise block with timber-clad loggias and pale concrete frame seen over a meadow and leafy trees in evening light

Housing block with white columns and timber panels glimpsed through leafy tree branches under a blue sky with thin clouds

Many of the strongest views catch the buildings through branches and long grass, and that seems deliberate. The pale frame works as a backdrop for planting, and the warm timber picks up the tones of evening light and leaves. The grid is crisp enough to read clearly through foliage but quiet enough not to compete with it.

Recessed corners and wrapped loggias let the blocks turn without a hard edge, so they read as pavilions in a garden rather than slabs lined up along a street.

An Ordered and Practical Ground Floor

Ground-floor bike room with glazed walls, steel racks and a dark column, one red bicycle parked and trees outside

Ground-floor terraces behind a low metal fence and screen panels, with concrete columns and timber cladding above young planting

Front facade of a five-storey block with slim white columns and vertical timber cladding, lit by low evening sun behind young trees

At ground level the project takes care of the practical side of everyday life. A glazed bike room with steel racks faces the trees instead of being buried in a basement, which makes cycling visible and normal. Ground-floor terraces are held behind low metal fences and screen panels, giving those residents a buffer from the shared garden without cutting them off.

The front elevations, with slim white columns and vertical boards catching low sun, show how little the scheme needs to look finished. The architecture relies on proportion and depth, not ornament.

Plans and Drawings

Site plan drawing showing four apartment blocks set around a shared garden with winding paths, bordered by streets and a park

Axonometric drawing of four apartment blocks around a shared courtyard, with cast shadows and surrounding streets and a park labelled

Ground floor plan drawing showing four residential blocks around a central landscaped courtyard with curving paths, trees and planted mounds

The site plan and axonometric make the overall strategy clear: four separate blocks surround a shared garden with winding paths, set between streets and a park. On the ground floor plan, the curving paths and planted mounds sit in deliberate contrast to the orthogonal buildings, a direct translation of the geometry-versus-landscape idea into plan.

Upper floor plan drawing showing apartment layouts in four separate blocks, each with a central stair core, arranged around garden paths

Building section drawing showing six stacked floors, a central stair and a basement car park, with bare trees and a figure outside

Construction detail drawings in section and plan showing insulated timber-frame walls, concrete slab edges and a window with a roller shutter box

The upper floors organise each block around a central stair core, a compact arrangement that leaves the perimeter free for apartments and loggias. The section stacks the residential floors over a basement car park, which keeps cars out of the garden entirely. The construction details are revealing: insulated timber-frame walls sit between concrete slab edges, so the concrete frame provides structure and expression while timber does the enclosure work. That hybrid explains much of the façade's character.

Why This Project Matters

Racine Carrée shows that the constraints of social housing, repetition, budget and density, can become a design method instead of a limitation. By treating the grid as a frame for permutation, rue royale architectes and unes architectes get variety from a single module, and by making the loggia a true outdoor room they give residents the kind of space usually reserved for market-rate projects.

Just as important is the restraint. The buildings are calm and the garden is loose, the cars are underground and the bikes are on display. Combining a concrete frame with timber infill suggests a pragmatic route toward lower-carbon housing without exotic technology. It is a model worth studying for anyone designing affordable homes at the edge of a French city.

Racine Carrée Social Housing by rue royale architectes, with unes architectes and landscape architects Atelier du Trèfle, for Alliade Habitat. Bron, France. 5,791 m². Completed 2026. Photography by François Baudry.

About the Studio

rue royale architectes

Official website of rue royale architectes, one of the studios behind this project.

rueroyalearchitectes.com

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