Hasta La Ideas

A 100-year-old house in Paris has been renovated and extended by local studio CUT Architectures to frame a garden facing the morning sun and create a shaded terrace overlooking a nearby park (+ slideshow).

CUT Architectures refurbished the existing House in Meudon, which is home to a family of three. The building was constructed by the client’s grandfather and was only 42 square metres in size, so a timber extension was added to create extra room.

“We wanted to keep the sentimentality and feel of the existing house in the new extension,” architect Yann Martin told Dezeen. “It was very much a working house, with rabbits in the garden and wood for the chimney.”

The new extension doubles the size of the building and provides extra space for the parents to work separately from their teenage child.

The architects sourced native red cedar and used it to wrap both the existing structure and extension. They then constructed a south-facing timber terrace at the front.

“We liked the idea that the established house was wooden framed and wanted the new extension to be constructed from steel and wood, with the trees and view surrounding it,” Martin explained. “The use of timber helps to create a continuous surface across the build.”

Raised one metre above the ground to match the original property, the extension contains a large living room with bare white walls that contrast with the black-framed windows.

“It was difficult to build on the soil that was marked from years of clay and chalk digging in the undergrowth, so when we built the new extension, we provided a concrete base that gave the house a strong footprint and two separate gardens,” Martin said.

The terrace sits just in front and features a slatted roof to shade it from the sun, creating a pattern of shadows that filters through the facade.

A master bedroom and bathroom are tucked away at the rear, leading out to a sheltered garden where the owners can enjoy the morning sunrise over breakfast.

In the original structure, a bedroom and bathroom offer separate living spaces for the youngest member of the family.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

House in Meudon, France

The project is the extension and refurbishment of a very small detached house in Meudon, one of the nearest suburbs of western Paris. The location is exceptional; the plot is on the hill offering fantastic views and facing a park. The existing house was in a very bad condition but the owners had a sentimental attachment to it and didn’t want to tear it down.

The extension is twice the size of the existing house including a 20m² terrace. The extension is a wooden structure with a zinc roof almost invisible from the garden. Both the extension and the existing house are wrapped with vertical timber giving a continuous surface to the two volumes.

The living space and the terrace are lifted 1.2m above the garden level to match the existing house ground floor level and turning the terrace into a promontory for the views. The bedroom and bathroom space is on the natural ground level on the back of the plot. The articulation of the extension creates two gardens for the house: the one in the back for the morning sun and the one in front, facing the park and south-west from the terrace.

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by CUT Architectures appeared first on Dezeen.

Bold orange windows punctuate the wooden facades of this angular apartment block that French studio Vous Êtes Ici Architectes has slotted between the existing buildings of a south Paris neighbourhood (+ movie).

The six-storey building was designed by Vous Êtes Ici Architectes to provide 11 social housing units beside a school in the 5th Arrondissement of the French capital, on a site previously occupied by a low-rise warehouse.

Rather than building across the entire site, the architects developed an irregularly shaped block that follows the rhythms of the surrounding architecture and frames a pair of gardens at the north and south-east edges.

These gardens also line up with the main road and pedestrian pathway that frame two edges of the site, helping to the reduce the visual impact of the structure.

“The building is set back from the street, allowing the sunlight to reach the school courtyard set across the street,” explained studio founders Alexandre Becker, Paul Pflughaupt and Julien Paulré. “This setup allows respiration and gives space back to the pedestrian passage.”

While some of the building’s walls are clad with timber planks, others are covered with pre-weathered zinc. At ground level, there are also walls of dark brickwork, which demarcate entrances.

Windows with orange frames add colour to the elevations. This feature is echoed in the building’s stairwells and corridors, where walls, floors and railings are uniformly painted in the same hue.

No more than three apartments are located on each floor and the angular shapes of the building give each home a non-standard shape.

“The created volumes allow different typologies for the apartments as well as creating views for all,” said the architects.

South-facing loggias allow apartments to benefit from sunlight during the peak of the day.

Graphic logos adorn doors to direct residents to bicycle storage and bin stores, while a grassy terrace is located on the roof.

Photography is by 11H45.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Logements Sociaux Paris 75005

Located in the Mouffetard area, Latin Quarter of Paris, our project aims to de-densify the heart of the city block in which it is located.

The building is set back from the street allowing the sunlight to reach the school courtyard set across the street. This setup allows respiration and gives space back to the pedestrian passage. The roof line is continuous and guaranties the continuity of the facades over the street. The set up on the plot is effective, the street is no longer only functional it has become sumptuous.

The construction is a unique volume that has been hollowed out. The recesses generate a course. They punctuate and follow our movements. The created volumes allow different typologies for the apartments as well as creating views for all. The project is more an architectural device than a sculpture.

The primary concrete structure supports wooden based facades. The envelope is of pre-aged zinc and wooden openwork cladding. The hall, stairs and landings are set up in a unique volume that has no partitions; the different levels are visually linked. Perambulation is naturally illuminated in the common spaces. Apartments have from two to three orientations. Hollow construction elements were refused. The apartments are luxurious.

A compact building, a well-insulated wooden structure, solar panels, double glazing windows, a planted roof terrace and loggias with a southern exposure allow us to respect the requirements of Paris’s Climate Plan and to reduce the ecological impact of the building. It is architecture of an efficient nature.

Developer: ELOGIE
Architects: Vous Êtes Ici Architectes (A. Becker, J. Paulré, P. Pflughaupt)
General contractor: Fayolle & Fils
Technical engineering: FACEA
Economist: BMA
Environment engineering: ICADE

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slots between buildings in Paris appeared first on Dezeen.

Paris studio Yoonseux Architectes added wooden surfaces and red floors to this school classroom building in the French city of Livry Gargan, to echo the autumnal tones of neighbouring trees (+ slideshow).

Built to accommodate the expanding number of pupils attending J. Jaurès Primary School, Yoonseux Architectes‘ extension occupies a site between two of the school’s existing buildings.

It provides a sheltered courtyard and three classrooms, linked together by a long corridor that faces the playground from the front of the building.

A wall running along the back of the site provides a backdrop for the carefully positioned trees, which can be seen from inside each of the classrooms.

“We conceived of the project as an ‘open edge’, not as a ‘wall to divide’,” said the architects. “To ensure this idea we made a garden along the boundary. All of the new classes orient toward this garden.”

Large windows along the back wall of the classrooms frame views of the trees, while knotted timber boards clad the walls to enhance the connection between the interior and the garden.

“[With] this choice of material it is our intention to extend the garden to be inside the building,” said the architects. “Visible from the classrooms, its architectural treatment identifies the garden as a value-adding landscape element extending up to the sky.”

The underside of the roof covering the courtyard and the wall adjacent to the building’s entrance are also covered in wood to create a warm and welcoming space for children to play.

Just two concrete columns support the 15-metre span of the roof, offering minimal disruption to the space underneath.

Horizontal metal bars separate the courtyard from the garden and allow sunlight to filter through, creating a pattern of light and shadow on the ground.

The corridor that extends past the classrooms features a translucent glass wall that permits partial views of the playground.

In this space, the use of wood continues on the doors and their surrounds, as well as low storage units and simple wooden coat pegs that are fixed to the wall in two staggered rows.

Photography is by Fabrice Dunou.

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to match autumnal tree leaves appeared first on Dezeen.

A seven-storey block of flats by Guérin & Pedroza Architects is the latest addition to a project transforming the site of a nineteenth century fort outside Paris into a new residential district (+ slideshow).

The Issy-les-Moulineaux fort was one of 16 built around the French capital between 1841 and 1845 that played a part in protecting the city from Prussian invasion. It became wasteland after it was decommissioned and was bought from the Ministry of Defence by the local government in 2010.

Public facilities were built, including fitness trails, a swimming pool and a bowling pitch for future occupants, and further plots sold on to a series of developers.

Parisian firm Guérin & Pedroza‘s contribution, situated in the northern part of the fort with views over eastern Paris, is one of four blocks built by developer Bouygues Immoblier as part of the project.

The shape of the block respects the original outline specified by over-arching masterplanners Architecture Studio.

It contains 74 flats, ranging from studios to five bedroom homes, arranged along central corridors. Rather than create uniform volumes, the architects made each flat unique by hollowing out or filling in the facades to create balconies, loggias and terraces.

Each intervention is clad in a gold material to make it stand out further.

Hot water and heating is provided using geothermal energy provided by a 700-metre-deep well and heat pumps, and waste collection is also handled underground with a pneumatic removal system.

Photography is by Paul Kozlowski.

More from the architect:

Project description 

A contemporary history

During the period of the Prussian invasions, the politician Adolphe Thiers erected defensive walls around Paris named after him. Between 1841 and 1845, 16 forts were built around the city. One after the other, they lost their military status. Among these military wastelands, the Issy-les-Moulineaux fort, known today as the “Digital fort”, an eco-district project carried out notably by Bouygues Immobilier. This grouping gathers 18 blocks of residential flats, a day nursery and two school complexes.

Concerning leisure, the curtains have been recycled into two-kilometre-long fitness trails; a swimming pool and a bowling pitch have also been created. If the programme has somehow been thought as a garden of Eden, the developers have meant to give digital touch with a systematic optical fibre cabling of the buildings and home automation.

An ellipse to fill in

Within this multi-authors programme, the building lies within a wider urban project with various authors. The general plan of the fort and of thus the shape of the blocks was designed by the French team of Architecture Studio which won the 2000 competition. Guerin & Pedroza chose to respect that shape while giving it a strong identity. The seven-storey building has 74 flats —from studio to five-bedroom— arranged along central corridors. The bigger ones are duplexes.

The situation of the villa in the northern part of the fort, along a north/south axis, offers a special view on the east of Paris and opens widely to the south on orchard. Each flat is made specific by hollowing out or filling in the façades. Thus, the orientations either follow the original geometry of the building or that of new the openings.

A precious and useful touch

A series of polymorphous inclusions make the regularity of the general plan more dynamic. A bright golden cladding adds value to those spaces carved into the white volume. It stages the balconies, loggias and terraces where the inhabitants will enjoy the outer living areas. At sunrise and sunset, lights and reflections will be enhanced for the pleasure of the users.

About environment

Four hectares out of twelve are dedicated to green spaces and most notably an orchard that counts 350 trees spread around the villas. Concerning sustainable development, two 700-metre-deep geothermal wells have been set and cover 78% of the production of hot water and heating needed for the whole fort. A pneumatic waste collection system gathers all the rubbish into two spots at the entrance of the fort, thus avoiding trucks within the site. Besides, all the flats located on the ground floor enjoy a private garden.

Technical details

Programme: 74 low-energy flats (studio to 5-bedroom)
Location: Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine, France)
Client: Bouygues Immobilier
Architects: Guérin & Pedroza Architects
Collaborators: F.Mouly and S. Videment
Builder: Bouygues Bâtiment
Total surface area: 4016m2
Material used: Concrete structure, aluminium clapboard cladding, thermo-lacquered aluminium railing, thin coating over external wall insulation, and white PVC exterior window and door frames.
Cost: 7,23 millions euros off tax

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of flats by Guérin & Pedroza Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Découverte de « Façades » : le nom de la série encore en cours du photographe français Zacharie Gaudrillot-Roy. Il a imaginé ce que serait une ville exclusivement composée de façades retirées du reste de la bâtisse. Cela donne des villes étranges mais plus spacieuses. Le tout est disponible dans la suite de l’article.