84 Accommodations and 4 Public Facilities Paris, France

design brief and aims

The architects say, “In Paris it’s no longer a time for ring-roads but of stitching an urban fabric”. Standing between Paris’ Boulevard Ney and the Périphérique (ring-road), Avenue de la Porte de Montmartre delineates the Western boundary of the Binet neighborhood, where the city of Paris and the local town hall have done extensive work to rekindle the dynamics and balance of the district.

- Vaishnavi Uchil

This project marks the start of urbanization and neighborhood life along the broad Avenue de la Porte de Montmartre. The main issue was to speak to the city in an environment highly influenced by its proximity to the ‘Périphérique,’ which had immense sound and chemical pollution. The other issue was the length of the plot, which resulted in a very long façade. So questions arose on how to bring natural light into the heart of the facilities while respecting the configuration of the avenue and preserving the qualities of use required by the brief.

how this was accomplished

This vast operation combined briefs for proximity of public housing and private apartments and involved several demolitions and reconstructions. The plan was broken down into plots to avoid the fortress effect imposed by the required scheduling and the program’s considerable surface area (over 10,000 sq. m) and by designing urban porosities and transparencies towards the center of the plot to house the building containing 84 accommodations and four public facilities: a day nursery, a library, a community center and a social center.

The architects decided to combine a sequence of quality entrances for the inhabitants while maintaining full access to the facilities along the avenue. Organization into blocks made it possible to differentiate each facility by alternating empty spaces directly above which entrances to the accommodations were placed and recessed from the street.