Loches City, located south of the Centre-Val de Loire region, is a City of Art and History and one of the Most Beautiful Detours of France. Since the 1980s, the demographic growth of Loches has slowed, especially following the cessation of Paris mushrooms production. Through the arrival of rural elderly who wants to approach the nearby amenities, the population is aging.

People from Tours, the city of the prefecture, who wish to acquire an affordable property close to Nature also fuels this new population in Loches.

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Having an interview with the city mayor, many round-trips onsite and meeting different users and actors of the city enabled a realistic and sensitive perception of the site. The analysis at different scales led to the issue which has been treated on this final-year project.

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The project deals with interventions that can be put into three registers that could be called three generics.

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The first one concerns rehabilitation of abandoned buildings. Indeed, one of the factors of the declining of small towns is the fact that these cities are deprived of public services. The slogan of this type of intervention could be to ensure continuity by assuming rupture. This is what would give adapted qualities in a protected area, through an Architectural Charter.

 

The second register comes from an observation of the ancient urban fabric and acts as acupuncture interventions. By accumulating microsurgery actions on existing typologies, a new impulse, a new energy could be given thanks to contemporary tools.

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The third register corresponds to classical housing. We can imagine that we could increase several blocks even densify them to respond to demographic growth.