Résidence Pierre et Vacances Costa Plana

This holiday resort has 174 apartments, a pool and a parking garage. Nouvel's analysis began with the site. It is rocky and steep, almost a cliff, and partly cut into by an old quarry. The appropriate architecture would therefore follow the profile of the cliff, almost as an extension of it. 'A minimal, mineral architecture' is how Nouvel describes it. The exterior façades are finished in polished stone, matching in colour the natural stonework of the cliff. In using a natural material with an artificial surface, Nouvel both accepted the dictates of the site and expressed the imposition of the new structure over the original, another feature of the site that plays on the natural/artificial ambiguity. This layered approach to the contextual possibilities of the project is a key to Nouvel's approach to architecture. By using stone and cutting and polishing it like concrete, Nouvel both affirms the requisites of the site and his own intervention into it (text from website architect).