Grey

The French make all their buildings out of concrete, they love it. It has a few problems though... It's an environmental disaster to make, it's a poor insulator, it doesn't breathe well, it is heavy, it's grey, it's ugly. However it's cheap so they use it a lot. On our way to the hippodrome for the walk we past several new buildings being built, this is one of them. It's typical construction of single skin of concrete block or poured sections, which will be rendered or decoratively clad. They may insulate the inside a little, but that's the wrong way round as it tends to cause moisture problems and it isn't as efficient as insulating on the outside - you'll observe that mammals and birds are fluffy on the outside not the inside...!

Anyhow this block is one of two that are being built to replace an earlier set of social houses that looked fine but I gather had asbestos issues so were too expensive to renovate - or so the Town Hall said - and so this block is required to replace them though fewer of these will be social housing and a lot will be for tourists and second homers...!