Le Point d’Eau Residence

Context

The project brings together three group homes for autistic residents and two for residents with multiple disabilities, on roughly 2.5 hectares made available by the commune of Attert. The building follows the natural slope of the site, with minimal earthworks, to limit its visual impact on this rural landscape. Timber and pale render facades echo the site’s mix of natural and built surroundings, while vegetated roofs improve thermal and acoustic performance, support biodiversity, and help filter and slow rainwater runoff. Native planting — grasses, hedgerows, fruit trees — completes the project’s integration into the landscape.

Light

Natural light is treated as a design tool in its own right. Bedrooms open onto the landscape through horizontal window bands that frame the view and calm the eye, while light wells bring daylight into the more introverted rooms at the heart of the building. To the south and south-west, large glazed openings bring in generous daylight, tempered by integrated solar shading to prevent overheating.

Architectural response

Every living unit is single-storey — a requirement linked to residents’ reduced mobility, but also to safety, since seizures or behavioural crises can make changes in level hazardous. Shared activity and therapy spaces are reached directly from outside, without crossing through a living unit, so residents are never confronted with an intrusion into their private space. Corridors that loop back on themselves are avoided, and each unit keeps clear spatial cues — essential for limiting the anxiety and emotional distress associated with pervasive developmental disorders.