The transition from a home to an office is a short one. The Haussmann-era buildings that line Paris’ avenues prove this every day. Originally designed as housing for the bourgeoisie, these constructions have turned out to be an extraordinary example of a sustainable, all-purpose architecture readily capable of also hosting offices, businesses, workshops, and schools. This flexibility is due to certain underlying constants: a clear structure, a high degree of compactness, a ground floor that opens onto the street and which can be extended up to the mezzanine, and a wealth of openings and heights on the upper floors that generates a great variety of interior layouts. If we consider this constructive vocabulary as the greatest legacy of Parisian buildings, this frees our imagination from the yoke that housing programs sometimes represent. We can again begin to experiment. Set for the construction of 40 housing units at the very tip of the Clichy-Batignolles development zone, this parcel recalls the corner buildings that bookend Haussmann-era housing blocks. As such, it gives us the chance to prove how exemplary this historic model remains in the face of the contemporary challenges facing architecture and urban development.

Contrary to what the strict composition of the façade may suggest, this project does not respond only to one set of needs expressed at a certain point in time. Its domestic architecture was envisioned as totally transformable into office spaces. The façade supports the structure – a perfect extrusion of the parcel – which is also braced by the core of vertical circulations. The height between slabs has been increased to 3.20 metres, at the midpoint between heights for standard housing units (2.8 metres) and offices (3.5 metres). The façade is based on 1.35-metre frames so that the windows can be 2.70 metres wide, as they are for offices. Everything from the configuration of the levels to the proportions of the spaces and the regularity of the openings facilitates any modification of the interior layouts. This also gives the residences a particularly high quality of usage. Their loggias, which represent an added value of 5 to 12 m2 of extra space, are fashioned at the back of the framework to order a variety of private, exterior spaces. Together with the ample windows and extraordinary ceiling height of the housing units, this produces very spacious apartments where the living room, bedrooms, and kitchen are bathed in abundant natural light.

The standardisation of its openings was essential to avoiding any specific connotation for the project, so that the building’s image would not hinder its capacity to evolve in terms of its use. That said, there are minor distinctions that respond to the different comfort requirements on the north and south façades (the windows are floor to ceiling facing south and rising off the sill to the north; their position is either inset or flush with the façade; blinds are either interior or exterior). For that matter, the decisions that guided the project are also the source of the reasonable management of its economy. Framing enables standardisation and thus the use of high-quality products to enrich the facades’ ornamentation. The building uses a single joinery of black lacquered aluminium and three types of double wall panels, the exterior faces of which are in polished concrete. And to extend the metaphor, two elegant, golden ribbons recall the Haussmann piano nobile.

Client: ICF Novédis / Cost: € 5.3M excl. VAT/ Surface: 2740 m² / Schedule: 2010 – 2014 / Team: Bollinger-Grohmann (Structure), LBE (M.E.P.), JP Tohier & Associés (Surveyor), Franck Boutté (HEQ)