This project, on the crossroads between the Rue des Grottes and Rue Louis-Favre, completes the northern corner of the Grottes district. It is clearly consistent with the urban fabric of triangular plots and concludes the axis traced by Jean-Claude Berger in 1869. The project recognises the issue of the district’s continuity as an identifiable entity within Geneva and reinforces its unique "village" status at the very centre of an international city.

The new building’s outline is the result of a simple operation that derives logically from the plot. It is a similar reduction of a form created by the fusion of the two L-shaped buildings lining the Rue du Midi and Rue Louis-Favre. This external outline is inspired by the overall organisational logic of the district’s working-class housing and preserves the spirit of the place through the qualities of the urban space it offers. It thus optimizes the plot’s constructional surface area, makes possible a triangular central courtyard by means of a simple displacement and maintains the quality of the small secondary alley (a shortcut for pedestrians and cyclists and a children’s play area). It also creates a small square, opening onto the Rue des Grottes to the right of the group of trees, whose size is in keeping with the spirit of the place and prevents competition with the Place des Grottes, the real “village square” at the heart of the district. Lastly, it accentuates the entrance to the area via the Rue des Grottes, which retains its status of main street.

The block’s form reconciles three very different street profiles around a central triangular courtyard. The lowest profile, in line with the maximum height on the Rue des Grottes, is applied to the two long sides. The height of the third side is aligned with the alley’s buildings. Through a single process, the building’s scale is adapted to that of the adjacent one and, further south, to that of the heart of the district and its interplay of roofs. The shape obtained by these two contours and two treatments of the silhouette is an entirely context-related form that remains radical and autonomous.

The focus of the project is the triangular courtyard. This shape is found at the centre of the blocks in the Grottes district and elsewhere in the city, where two streets intersect at an acute angle. It confers great qualities to the dual-aspect apartments that consequently benefit from views onto the street and the courtyard.