Description

“Home” is the first high-rise housing project to be realised in Paris since the 1970s. In the new Masséna-Bruneseau quarter near the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, a change in regulations in 2011 permitted the construction of residential buildings up to a height of 50 m and office buildings up to 180 m.

The new building by Harmonic + Masson has become a landmark of urban housing in Paris: not just because it transcends the long-running debate on high-rise buildings in Paris mired in a struggle between traditions of the past and the desire to develop something new, but also due to its exemplary mix of almost equal measures of social housing and owner-occupied apartments.

The building is located on Boulevard Périphérique and lies at the transition between the inner city and its imposed height restrictions and the skyline of the vertical city beyond. Its urban morphology and building form symbolise this transition.

The two towers rise out of a common, five-storey block with shops and business premises. The lower, 14-storey tower contains the owner-occupied units and has a stepped form with loggias on one side and tiers of broad balconies facing the second tower. This taller, 50 m-high tower contains the social housing apartments in a staggered arrangement of variously protruding floor slabs that creates the impression that each floor is slightly different. While the balcony spaces vary on each floor, the actual outer face of the building changes less dramatically. Each of the 188 apartments in the complex therefore has its own identity, which was a key concern of the architects so that the building is able to respond to a wide range of different living requirements.

Originally published in Bauwelt 19.2017, pp. 34-35, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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