Construction of 8 dwellings, 4 artist studios and 1 retail area
Entirely built in concrete, the building is based in three fundamental objectives.
The first objective relates to the designation of a «social housing» program. The word «social» is essential, as it indicates the ability of a residential building to create social cohesion and exchange between it residents.
Sociability relies on the idea of recognition. On one hand recognition is, with a topographical point of view, a matter of discovering one’s surroundings, including the perception of those surroundings from one’s apartment.
In this building, even the smallest apartments have a variety of views to the outside. The diversity of the views provides a better
understanding of the surrounding environment.
On another hand, recognition also includes acknowledging the other, being a part of the city, and interacting with it. Each resident thereby becomes an essential part of the building itself, and thus of the neighborhood and the city. This is already a form of social recognition.
The second objective is the uncompromising work with the plans of the housing units. This was a primordial priority throughout the entire working process: there cannot be any compromise.
A pleasant house is not only a spacious house, it has to offer more.
More space than it has surfaces, more functions and habitability.
In order to achieve spatial expansion and variety, diagonal views were created, providing transparency and complexity, sequences of continuous spaces, and a wide range of different interiors.
Balconies and terraces were designed as direct extensions of the indoor living-rooms, spacious enough to become comfortable and usable outdoor living-rooms.
A pleasant house also simply is a house with natural light in every room, including kitchens and bathrooms.
As we found it improper to place the bathrooms on the facade side of the housing units, glass fanlights were used in order to provide indirect natural lighting.
Finally, a pleasent house, is a house that shows that the architect has been concerned about the details : the tiles for the bathrooms, the form of the sinks and to choose just the right faucets - and yet always with an awareness of the context and the financial latitude.
The shared spaces are spaces shared between neighbours who provide a common identity. The shared spaces where payed much attention, in the same way as each housing unit. A variety of ways to realise the different details and solutions where used, to show that even with a small budget, it is possible to pay attention to, choose and design each element. In other words, a great attention was payed in all scales of the project.
Moreover classical details has been reinterpretated as a part of the project. For example, the traditional Haussmanian staircase carpet has been here turned into a black painted lining on the raw concrete stairs and its white negative lines the underside of the flight of the stairs.
This brings us to the last but not least important objective: the act of architecture is a plastic act.
Our work is focused on the relationship between a space and the construction of that space.
The methods of construction, the materials, the forces, all these take part in the making of architecture.
This is why concrete was chosen, as it works both in tension and compression.
Its implementation without visible joints gives the impression of a monolythic mass, urning the building into a unit from which nothing can be extruded. The building is all about structure.
Its design reacts to the context of the street.
Recesses of certain parts at the corner of the façade participate in making the building rise and appear more delicate, as well as a reminder of the particular urban situation.
Further down the rue du Nord, the building adapts its form to the surrounding volumes. While on the ground floor the front doors of the artists’ studios are aligned with he property line, the upper floors are set back in order to create more distance to the building on the other side of the street, as it is only 4,80 meters wide.
To accentuate the sculptural appearance of the building, every detail has been designed to reduce the distance between structure and space. For example, exterior railings were designed as simple glass sheets attached with lateral U-form steel profiles, the windows were conceived in order to include the shutters into the masonry, instead of the traditional steel windowsills, a concave drain has been shaped into the concrete to collect rainwater and evacuate it thanks to a simple stainless steel drainage, and all the ironwork has been embedded directly into the concrete without any platinium fixations.
The traditional finish becomes no longer necessary, as it is won over by the clear structure and materials.
