Housing in the 20th district of Paris
The project involves the construction of 20 social housing units and a shop for the Régie Immobilière de la Ville de Paris (RIVP).
It is located in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, in the heart of an irregular plot of land and a district marked by typical architectural heterogeneity.
The plot is characterised by a street front of around 18 metres, facing due south, and by a depth that immediately after alignment, takes an angle towards a shared, very green courtyard. The rear facade faces north-east.
The project is inserted between two residential buildings of seven floors high. These illustrate the diversity of styles and periods existing in the suburb, the building to the west on the rue des Pyrénées being Haussmann-style, while the building to the east, made of brick and dressed stone, dates from the beginning of the 20th century.
Thus, with two long, deep, adjoining facades, the project makes the most of the facades available on the street and courtyard in order to generously heat and light the flats. To this end, the facades are glazed wall to wall and floor to floor. This is made possible by the absence of facing buildings, which opens up distant views from the flats. The use of external blinds and internal curtains makes it possible to modulate the solar gain, to intimidate the dwellings and to conceal the rooms for the night.
The project's ambition is to build largely glazed dwellings. Indeed, the inevitable consideration of environmental standards sometimes tends, with excess, to design buildings with a fragile materiality, or at least not very "material". The will here is to construct a building that can respond to our desire for materiality and this building is representative of our attempts. To do this, we have relied on a desire to save materials and on bioclimatic principles (but behind these words, shouldn't "common sense" be understood?).
Therefore, the choice of techniques and materials was based on a simple palette : concrete and glass. In order to avoid cladding materials, concrete was chosen for its structural qualities and its ability to generate optimal thermal phase shift. It contributes to summer thermal comfort. The joinery that punctuates the facade is minimal, since the structural glass allows the use of as little aluminium as possible.
In addition, all the flats have outdoor areas, balconies and/or terraces. The wide sliding windows without protruding thresholds allow the openings to be modulated to facilitate the use of interior and exterior spaces according to the seasons and desires, easily adding them together. The terrace extends indoors and the living room outdoors. For example, in the four-roomed courtyard flat, the bacon row becomes a summer circulation in addition to the interior corridor, with the kitchen being the room that completes the circuit.
Moreover, the garden in the heart of the island is designed in the continuity of the garden on the neighbouring property. It participates in this "green space" by creating a shadow garden that allows the plot to cool down naturally in summer. The garden is in the open ground, which can be appropriated and gardened by the inhabitants.
Also, the roof is designed as a terrace and a future development with a wooden deck will allow inhabitants to use it. A staircase leading to the roof is also planned for this purpose.
