How to build nowadays social housing in a district of Paris which has a strong Haussmann identity, and at the same time how to answer the challenges of today, and among them sustainability?

The building shows its belonging to the Parisian history and at the same time its modernity in the Parisian urban landscape.

The street façade plays with the contradiction and complexity between historical and contemporary, between verticality and hori¬zontality, between alignments and shifts, between light and shad¬ows, between mineral and vegetal.

The façade develops themes of the Parisian Architecture such as composition and materiality: wooden vertical windows, mineral mate¬riality, high level ground floor, horizontal cornices...

The façade is treated with a noble, massive and sustainable materi¬ality: an architectonic prefabricated concrete, a contemporary mate¬rial which is one of the substitutes of the carrier stone. These prefab elements are bearing-parts of the structural concept of the project, and their color is a middle warm grey which reacts differ¬ently according to the moment of the day and to the weather.

The hall is a transversal space connecting the street with the inner courtyard, planted with a majestic chestnut tree.

The organisation of the dwellings inspires itself from Haussmann apartments prin¬ciples with representative spaces oriented towards the street, and bedrooms towards the courtyard. All the apartments, except the studios, have a double orientation. The typologies are organised around a watercore composed from the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. Ones can walk all around this watercore, creating a dilatation effect of the space.

The building is highly insulated with a very effective thermal skin, with an energy supply of 40 Watt/m².year and an air-proof skin of 0,20 m3/m².h which is similar to Passiv’Haus certification.

The project believes in the capacity of the Haussmann template to cross the ages.