A new social housing project by Hardel Le Bihan Architectes was recently completed this year in Paris near the Clignancourt University campus. The 63 housing unit structure is part of a larger development comprised of two apartment buildings and a university cafeteria.
In line with the growing greenbelt, the firm created a large, south-facing open area at the middle of the development and a meadow on the roof of the restaurant.
The project aims to give new language to the architecture of social housing. With a compact design, the structure is elongated by a second, lightweight skin highlighting its verticality.
The network of balconies orchestrates a facade pattern of single and double heights following the floor plan grid. On the garden side, the textured concrete gives a relief to the otherwise flat facade through a play of shadow and light.
Location: Rue Francis de Croisset, Paris
Program: 63 social-housing units, shops, parking for 53 cars (part of a 103 housing units program)
Client/developer: Paris Habitat
Team: Pascaline Gasc project leader. ID+ (engineers), RFR Elements (sustainability), Fayat (general contractor), Gaëtan Le Penhuel & Ass (mandatory architect: 40 housing units and university cafeteria).
Surface areas: 4.538m2 GIA and 390m2 GIA of retail (on a total of 9.070 m2 GIA)
Cost: 18.6 million €uros (global)
White concrete buildings are common all over Europe and they age ok, maybe in 25 years or more they will need to have the finish re-touched. But even if all the above examples do get some wear and tear on them they still are nice projects. Much nicer then curtain wall condo crap going on in North America.
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Now that is some nice housing
Yes it is, yes it is.
I like the building, but i fail to see the "network" of balconies, it looks like each balcony is its own separate thing, just attached by taller columns to the others. maybe it's just a bad translation.
I agree, JLC. I figured "network" meant they were joining separate apartment units, but they don't.
I thought they would be connecting too from the description but I'm glad they aren't. You don't want to give your neighbor access to your balcony.
It’ll also stay clean over the years - very clean. No water streaks at all - yep.
Unattractive and stale, flies in the face of the rich architectural tradition of Paris. The only good thing about this is that it is social housing. The money pissed away on those shitty balconies would have been better spent on better architecture, a richer material palette, communal amenities, etc.
bad choice on all-white.
People need to go back and look at Classic Modernism, where the spaces and arch was fluid, and accent pieces like marble, wood and steel broke the open plan. Now social housing plays upon the repeating unit in banal ways that play to self-parodies of minimalism not Modernism
Would love to see how it ages and how it will look when people start using those balconies. It's quite common to build all white social housing in France:
https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05...
https://www.dezeen.com/2014/09...
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/01...
If quite common, then there must be some existing examples to see how they've worn...?
I tried google street view but they're too new:
https://goo.gl/maps/iMLWZjJwgN...
https://goo.gl/maps/RJxoESEsDsD2
It looks like parkour paradise. Privacy will be an issue with balconies hanging over each other.
White concrete buildings are common all over Europe and they age ok, maybe in 25 years or more they will need to have the finish re-touched. But even if all the above examples do get some wear and tear on them they still are nice projects. Much nicer then curtain wall condo crap going on in North America.
White concrete buildings are the best buildings!
Let's make America(n buildings) white again!
There are very fine buildings. On both sides. Of the street.
Baron Haussmann is why Paris is Paris and not the dreck that is London.
Paris is awesome, but so is London. Just because it's free(er) market allows for some questionable interventions, while Paris's more socialist government protects its historical patrimony better. You can't have it all.
So, you ARE a fan of radical straight lines and the demolishing of existing centuries old intimate urban tissue as long as you slap some classical ornamentation on it? Noted :)
I'll slap some steel angles on it if you'd like. You don't need classical ornamentation to make it sing, but it doesn't hurt if you know the tune !)
Not like Luftwaffe bombing had anything to do with what London became, right? You know, Nazi bombs?
love it, question the "social" housing component though.
In France, by law, every town >3500 needs to provide for at least 20% social housing.
That's great, I'm wondering, does is the law prescriptive enough across communities of difference?
I love that they allow circular stairs in these buildings for egress. It does still concern me that there's only one set, though.
Holy smoke! Look at that exiting arrangement. Only one stair, AND it's a winder! You can almost see the bodies pile up when somebody trips at the bottom. The balcony system would be needed as de facto egress, via the parkour method.
Good eye, Donna.
It's only 20 units on either side though, right? Not likely to cause much of a stampede the way an office building would.
True. We're just so used to multiple stairs, and to be so wary of winders.
I live in a building that is of similar size and construction (I live in Europe) but my building is much older circa 150 years old. The building has a similar amount of rooms per floor and one stair. In the past 7 years of living here there have been 2 fires. One across the hall in the kitchen and the other was my neighbor also in the kitchen. Those fires got pretty big and it took maybe 30min for the fire fighters to get here but the fires never made past the apartments respective fire walls. And everyone made it out of the building.
And when I mean similar construction I mean all floors, exterior wall and fire walls are solid concrete.
This is what Paris looked like before Baron Haussmann did his trick, so everything old is not worth saving. Looking at you Brutalism.
Now I understand why white nationalists loooove olden time architecture.
wait- That's not the only view of Paris...
1839. Look at that Boulevard and establishing street trees.
Haussmann didn't invent grand-manner urban design, nor was he the first to create certain elements of it in Paris. But the vast scale used to implement GM in such a short period was his doing, under Louis-Napoleon's authority to exercise eminent domain so extensively.
White nationalist rally in Paris.
Neo-Nazi rally in Paris at the City Hall
^missing points like flacco misses wide receivers.
Not missing the point. You just have no intelligent way to back up your smear because you just don't think.
Trads gon trad. Can't debate disingenuous trads.
"White concrete buildings are common all over Europe and they age ok,"
That wall does not look like it is part of housing or any building- more like some sort of infrastructure- so most likely a different mix is used to make the concrete. Also since it appears to be some sort of infrastructural wall therefore there is no systems of gutters to manage the water flow away from the concrete thus the gross water stains. Typically a mix of concrete and white plaster (or any colour for that matter) is mixed and applied as a finish to buildings (with concrete walls and floors) that are occupied by ppl not some sort of infrastructure.
That's a great patina.
Same architect designed this, though not in Euroland. I am sure it will age well also.....
Looks alright to me- how about you wait until it looks like the first photo you posted and then post on here.
If that looks good to you, God bless as we all have different tastes, but if you think most people, whether from the political right or left would is laughable. Just more proof that you live in a cloister detached from the people you are supposed to serve. It's called humanism, that which seeks to find what we all have in common despite our superficial differences.
thayer d, what the hell are you talking about? My comment above was referring to the quality of the concrete and how it ages depending on how the details are done to mitigate water damage. Nothing more- weirdo.
Thayer-D likes to wank poetical about how the only person who understands HUMANITY is Thayer-D.
sorry Archinet, I misunderstood what you where talking about.
SneakyPete, why don't you offer us your understanding of humanity, assuming you think it has something to do with architecture. I hear that's the way new ideas are formed.
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