TolbiacT7B2

Paris, France

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TolbiacT7B2

Paris, France

Firm

SOA architectes

Type

Residential › Multi Unit Housing
Commercial › Retail
Educational › Nursery

YEAR

2016

Construction of a mixed-use building comprising 74 social housing units, crèche for 30 infants and activities on the ground floor

Constructing on such a vast area in the very heart of Paris, where nothing has been built yet, calls for an encounter between the remote and the present. The challenge is to produce architectural continuity and convergence to determine the new architectural style of the site. It is not only about unveiling what is already present in the urban unconscious of the Tolbiac district but also about inventing a new way of telling its story. Our project tries thus to establish familiar ties with its environment.

The façades of the two big residential volumes are entirely constructed and put up in solid brick. The use of this robust material, able to convey its materiality in a tangible way, tends to strengthen the architectural language typical of the Masséna district. The distinction between stores and housing units is highlighted by the opposition of the used materials. No doubt, the roughness of the brick and the design of the façade highlight the building’s difference from the avenue’s offices and equipment.

The first volume, giving onto Avenue de France, plays with verticality. In response to the extreme monumentality of the various buildings located in front of it, the volume raises into the sky developing into two separate towers creating its own language.

Despite all expectations, the second volume, giving onto the surrounding hills and the green promenade, seems to levitate like a cloud above the ground and stretches out towards the sky. The volume creates domestic plots and has a deep impact on the line of the horizon.

The crèche is located alongside the green promenade, protected from the noise of the avenue. Symbolically, it reveals itself in three times and on three scales. Firstly, connected to the garden, the crèche occupies a double span withdrawn from the hall to receive its occupants properly. The structure then develops between hall and housing units, in a perfectly transparent layer. Finally, it colonizes the very heart of the roof with its perched pavilion, small peaceful haven of peace, protected from gazes but open onto the horizon and the sky.