Project Name: La Vallée Verte

Location: Bordeaux, France

Design Team: MVRDV

Floor Area: 5,250 m²

Year of Completion: 2024

Image Copyright: MVRDV

Design Features: Dutch architecture studio MVRDV has completed La Vallée Verte, a 70-unit residential complex in Bordeaux’s emerging Bastide Niel district, where a restrained white exterior conceals a wildly lush interior world of cascading greenery.

Sited on a triangular plot along the Quai des Queyries on the right bank of the Garonne River, the project takes its name — “green valley” in French — from the dramatic circular courtyard carved out of its three interlocking blocks. Where the street-facing façades present smooth, light-grey tiled surfaces shaped by MVRDV’s own parametric “suncut” masterplan methodology — ensuring every building across the 144-plot district receives adequate direct sunlight — the inner faces open up entirely, with floor-to-ceiling loggias layered in planting that rises uninterrupted from ground level to the rooftop.

The planted balconies are no decorative afterthought. Generous planters line every loggia edge, hosting a curated mix of flowering shrubs, small trees, evergreen and deciduous species arranged at varying heights to replicate the ecology of a natural valley. To ensure this living landscape’s long-term health, the design incorporates a dedicated circulation route for professional gardeners running the full perimeter of the building — structural walls are punctuated with steel-doored openings, each cut into the unmistakable silhouette of a person wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a quietly playful nod to the gardener whose visits keep the valley alive.

MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas describes the courtyard as “a secret world, almost separate from the rest of the neighbourhood,” one that delivers the sense of intimacy central to the Bastide Niel vision through an entirely different means: not narrow streets, but an enclosed explosion of nature.

Certified under France’s EcoQuartier initiative, the project also connects to a district heating network, incorporates photovoltaic panels, and raises ground-floor units above flood level — a necessary measure given its location on the Garonne floodplain.

Design Team: MVRDV is a Rotterdam-based architecture and urbanism practice founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries. The firm has grown into one of the most influential international practices, operating from studios in Rotterdam, Shanghai, Paris, Berlin, and New York, with a team of over 250 architects, planners, and designers.

The practice’s work spans scales from master planning and urban design to individual buildings, interiors, and research projects. MVRDV employs computational design tools including its proprietary VOXEL modelling method to simulate urban density, solar access, and programme distribution. This methodology underpins landmark projects ranging from the Markthal in Rotterdam to the Sky Village towers in Copenhagen and the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen — the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility.

The founding partnership between Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries brings together complementary approaches to architecture: formal experimentation, technical rigour, and an enduring commitment to social and environmental responsibility. The Bastide Niel masterplan in Bordeaux — of which La Vallée Verte forms a part — stands as a testament to the firm’s capacity to shape not just individual buildings, but entire new urban districts.