Park Laval: a new piece of the city at Place Dargent
Paperjam features our project with Binst Architects at Place Dargent: 60 homes, ground-floor offices and retail, and two listed villas restored alongside new buildings.
Paperjam has featured the project we are leading at Place Dargent, in the Eich quarter. The site sits on the edge of Parc Laval and the Alzette valley, and will bring together four mixed-use buildings, two restored listed villas and sixty homes across a wide range of typologies. The building permit was filed in May 2022 and construction is under way.
A rare site on the edge of the park
The plot of roughly 9,000 m² has three qualities that are unusual in Luxembourg: direct access to Parc Laval, an opening onto the Alzette valley, and two protected villas, one listed at municipal level and one at national level. Three two-hundred-year-old trees complete the site, and we treat them from day one as structuring elements of the design rather than obstacles to work around.
These conditions call for restraint. Four built volumes, no more, replace the former industrial structures. Their heights, orientations and setbacks respect the silhouette of the neighbourhood and preserve the views from the villas.
In association with Binst Architects
We are developing Park Laval in association with Binst Architects. This format brings together two project cultures: ours, grounded in the Luxembourg context and its regulatory detail, and Binst's contemporary design vocabulary for collective housing. Landscape design is entrusted to Christophe Gautrand & Associés, a central role given the site.
Sixty homes, oriented toward the park
The residential programme covers the full range of typologies: studios, family apartments, duplexes. Every home has a private loggia or terrace, almost all oriented toward the park. The intent is straightforward: bring the landscape into the living space, rather than treating the view as an amenity.
The ground floors house offices and neighbourhood retail, sized to animate Place Dargent without breaking the residential scale at the back of the site.
Heritage: listed villas in tertiary use
The two listed villas are not frozen in place. They are being restored for tertiary use, which keeps them active and maintained. That decision, developed with the Service des Sites et Monuments Nationaux, favours living conservation over museum-style preservation.
Soft mobility and green continuity
The site is well served by public transit and cycle lanes, which let us right-size the car parking downward and invest in the pedestrian and cycle paths that cross the plot. Green corridors connect Place Dargent to Parc Laval without a break for residents or passers-by.
Why this project matters to us
Park Laval brings together the conditions we value most: a demanding heritage site, a mixed programme, a strong landscape, an international collaboration, and a client that accepts the time the work requires. The outcome should read as a piece of the city rather than as a real-estate complex.