Paris - Mixed use and housing building

Lot A, assigned to the LIN team, has several different uses including shops and business premises, 90 subsidized housing units and a 140-room student residence. Part of Lot A will be renovation of existing space and part will be new construction. The project faces the double challenge of creating quality living space and dealing with density. The Reuilly-Diderot neighborhood is a dynamic area with lots of shops and businesses. This characteristic is reflected in the diverse nature of the architectural program for Lot A. The building meets the criteria for several French certification labels including Climate Action Plan Paris, Effinergie +, Certification H&E RT 2012, and Patrimoine Habitat et environnement.

We have chosen to sub-divide our works package into three entities.
Our method to determine building layout on the land has been to do series of tests on different solutions in order to see the potential for each sub-plot in terms of urbanity, density, economics, history and liveability.

The real stakes in this project lie in the site’s connection to the area. Currently there is an enclosure all around the site which turns the current architecture inward, onto itself, separating it from the city. The City of Paris would like to keep the military buildings which line the Place d’Armes square and develop the square itself into public gardens. The LIN firm, working with the other architectural teams designing Lots C, and D/E, proposes to work on porosity of the built street frontage on Rue de Reuilly. Just like in the city of Stuttgart, the buildings are spaced just a few meters apart which creates a visual rhythm of openings looking towards the gardens. The new city garden and the heritage of the barracks become perceptible from Rue de Reuilly.

The corner of the building at the intersection between Rue de Reuilly and Boulevard Diderot will be an important marker of change. We have chosen a strong urban response for the treatment of this corner: a thin linear volume which disengages from the barrack’s parallelism and redefines an alignment on Boulevard Diderot. It separates from the existing building to create a generously-dimensioned interior courtyard.
A pivotal element between these two volumes announces the new sequence of Rue de Reuilly.
The slender thickness of the building (only 8 meters) is perceptible through the paced and random open spaces which reveal the barrack’s existing building in the background.
Slight cantilever over the public space marks entrances to shops and differentiates the commercial base from the student residence.

The barrack pavilions are assertively solitary volumes. We have chosen to distance ourselves from the existing barracks building so as to keep the overall composition of the barracks intact, in its U-shape as organized by the three built wings. The buildings are distanced and are easier to understand. The transition spaces between the public street and the interior of the plot are punctuated with entrances and give rise to different uses which beckon the visitor to enter into the island of space.
A system of catwalks directly connects the existing building to the student residence.

The architectural expression of the student residence building contributes to crafting the corner situation. The façade proposes large glazed windows onto the street which provide visual access to the students’ activities. These windows have a system of blinds which filter the gaze, protect privacy and turn the building into a light, unified volume.
The façades of the new housing, the pivot building and the plot building offer two interpretations of the inhabited metallic façade: a smooth building whose wide, regularly-spaced windows enhance the interior of the housing, and a building with rows of balconies which projects the housing outwards. The façade gives visibility to the different uses which in turn contribute to the architectural expression.

Redensifying the former barracks on Rue de Reuilly also entails the creation of a new urban oasis for the central Place d’Armes square becomes a public garden. As such, it is also a unifying space which federates the project. We project the public garden as an active site, a center for sociability and community building for inhabitants both at the Caserne de Reuilly and on the wider neighbourhood level.