London-based Farshid Moussavi Architecture has won a competition to design a residential tower in Montpellier, France. The so-called “Lot 2” project will be the first of 12 new buildings in the Jardins de la Lironde brownfield development in the city’s Port Marianne district, with construction set to begin in 2014.
The 11-story tower features curving, offset floor plates that wiggle out from the building’s core in a seemingly random pattern to create varied balconies and overhangs, and diverse floor plans. The winning design contains 36 apartments and a ground floor restaurant, and, responding to the competition brief, is meant to represent a “modern folly” in reference to 18th chateaux of Southern France.
Iranian-born Farshid Moussavi has garnered praise in the past for her Yokohama International Ferry Terminal in Japan, as well as for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, the firm’s first project in the United States. Moussavi is currently at work on a variety of other projects, including residential complexes in London and Paris.
