25 Social housing units, Nicolo’s street in Paris
This project is the implementation of an urban strategy based on continuity with the existing built environment. The program is contained within two buildings: the first facing the street, with ground floor + 4 floors, containing seventeen apartments; the second, at the back of the lot, contains an additional eight. The first building opens to the rue Nicolo through façade detached from the ground and creating a passageway toward the center of the city block and to the vertical circulations.
The view through this porch is directed toward the central garden. This prolongs the adjacent green spaces, creating a green lung on the scale of the built city block. The project is organized around this exterior circulation, which serves the entire program in a very direct and easy to understand way that recalls Parisian passageways. It also connects the built mases, the central garden and the interior courtyards in a layout that is regular and balanced in rhythm.
The apartments are double exposure, with living areas placed on the side of the main façade, where they benefit from views and sunshine. Each housing unit opens onto a garden with a specific character: golden foliage, shading foliage, white garden, etc. The ground floor and the façades on the courtyard have a mineral look and feel, clad in plaster of Paris or white concrete. The main façades are clad in brushed steel and organized in a regular composition.
Facing the rue Nicolo, the complete superposition of openings and molded sections enhance the impression of verticality and lightness. On the central garden, the difference in levels leaves the impression that the floors are sliding against each other, echoing the composition of the garden.
