Essonne: Behind the facade of a brand new residence, a new way of living together

About thirty kilometers south of Paris, the small town of Tigery, 4,500 inhabitants (which is part of the new town of Sénart), attracts new residents every year. It offers a living environment between the countryside and the city, schools, housing estates, shops, jobs with data centers, a BMW training center, a film studio… and for several months, a complete HLM residence. new type who has not finished making emulators.

At first glance, the “Les Camélias” residence is not particularly revolutionary in a town where private and social housing are as alike as two drops of water: a clean, colorful facade with several shades of brown and a few exposed stone walls. , large anthracite openings. The revolutionary side of the building of 90 housing units is not found in the few vegetable gardens scattered in the common garden, in its unstoppable thermal insulation, but in its “health residence” label, designed by the Parisian landlord, Antin Résidences and the municipal team.

A residence, a place of generational diversity

The building brings together 90 social housing units of all sizes with 27 housing units reserved for seniors and equipped accordingly, with accessible showers, electric shutters, telemedical advice and support from an occupational therapist in the event of loss of autonomy. These apartments are scattered among studios reserved for young professionals, larger apartments for families or single parents. Large spaces are also available to everyone: a garden with benches and children’s games, a teleworking space, a multi-purpose room for festive moments or activities coordinated by the municipality’s CCAS (art activities -therapy, conferences, catering, physical activity, creative hobbies, help with greening apartments, etc.). A space that resolves many questions for the municipal team: “We have many elderly residents in good physical condition who have difficulty maintaining their homes… This residential route will also free up houses for young couples with children who would like to settle in the community. We already had a Marpa service residence with 21 housing units with a dining room… but we wanted to create something intergenerational, a place to rethink living together,” explains Germain Dupont, mayor of the town.

“The common room will allow us to create moments for residents and Tigrians, through the CCAS. We want to do clay sculpture, digital initiation, ballroom dancing, card games… one activity per week for seniors… and for others! Families have already moved and arrived thanks to the 1% employer, young people in emancipation and several single parents who could not find affordable housing following separations. This type of residence, co-financed by the department, the region and the Greater Paris Sud conurbation, therefore offers a model more in line with societal and climatic developments. “The “Mon Logement Santé” label combines the quality of buildings with a host of adapted services, promoting good living, living together and well-being. Air quality, acoustics and summer comfort have been the subject of increased vigilance,” assures Antin Résidences, a subsidiary of the Arcade-Vyv group. It was following the health crisis that the mutual health and social prevention actor decided to launch the “My health housing” label in 2020, guaranteeing housing “designed, built and managed to live in a physical environment and health promoting service”. Like the Camélias de Tigery, around ten residences have been labeled in the area, including one in the 18the district of Paris and one in Voisins-le-Bretonneux and the group aims to become leader of healthy housing by building 1,000 housing units labeled “Health Housing” from 2024. From 2025, the Arcade-VYV Group has set itself the objective of producing 10,000 housing units per year, at least half of which have the “My Health Housing” label. »

THE baby boomerselderly people with new needs

Architect and researcher in social sciences, Manon Labarchede has worked extensively on the evolution of housing for the elderly. She co-wrote in 2022 with Maël Gauneau and Guy Tapie Guy “ Habitats and aging, people and places » (ed. Le Bord de l’Eau). According to the specialist, this model of residence responds to a recent challenge to the usual model of care for the elderly in single-sex spaces, in hospices, in nursing homes, in service residences. “For several years, intermediate housing has been made available to people as an alternative to home and nursing homes. There are serviced housing with independent apartments in the city center, intergenerational residences like the model proposed in Tigery, shared accommodation and participatory projects with very strong involvement of residents from the genesis of the project. All this echoes increasingly strong injunctions to elderly people to find other choices than medical care.” The intergenerationality touted by the “My healthy housing” concept is based, according to the researcher, on a “social utopia”, a winning formula between older and younger people who can provide services to each other and exchange ideas. “The architecture of a residence can help to facilitate this type of interaction but it is not a value that can be decreed, we can sometimes with the best will in the world create a juxtaposition of inhabitants, as in a standard residence. Some residences make mistakes by reserving the ground floors for housing for seniors, creating reserved spaces in a complex that is intended to be mixed; others do not push their objective far enough. There are, for example, intergenerational social housing themed, for example on music with the provision of rehearsal rooms and music workshops, but the inhabitants are not selected according to their affinity for this theme… In short, everything must be play in common spaces which must be pleasant places for everyone, in order to develop exchanges between generations.” According to the sociologist, aging well has become – beyond the scale of cities – a major concern in society, knowing that by 2030 one person in six will be over sixty. “City politicians and elected officials are among the key players, but the thinking is much broader. Architects, designers, individuals all anticipate aging. “Aging well” is one of the development assets of cities. This is why the “age-friendly city” label has existed since 2019 to reward municipalities offering ideal living conditions for elderly people. The cultural and sporting offers, the transport offer, the accessibility, praised by the municipalities must no longer be aimed only at young people and families but at the elderly. This is due to a real generational change: baby boomers are reaching old age, it is a generation more demanding than the one before. A generation who experienced the aging of their parents in old-generation nursing homes. It’s a generation with demands, an activist past, who knows what they want,” underlines the researcher.