Urban Housing PARIS: Town/Building/ Apartment

The project starts from the idea that to build a town and to build a dwelling emerge from the same principle – the attempt to define the limits of our way of living. The triptych of town, building, and apartment participates to this definition in stages from the intimacy of apartment to the environment of the nearest neighborhood and all the way to the making of the city. The architectural project defines itself also as a social project dealing with the inhabitants’ relation to the other individuals and to the society. The site is located between Zac Rue de Flandre Sud development area and the vast open space ofthe railroad yard of Gare de I ‘Est on the north side of the lively Boulevard de la Villette. The broken context of the turn-of-the-century working class housing is collected with a physical incision to the urban fabric. Green line – park – forms an oasis in the city life and creates public space in the quarter. Visually a whole, the park is divided into parts for each respective block and raised a little above the street level. The nature is set in the architectural frame. It is presented as a different space – living and seemingly homogeneous and confronted with the mix of buildings. The changes along the seasons condition the atmosphere of the park, which is opposite to the stability of the living buildings.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Intl.1995.6

Volume Editors
John K. Edwards