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Homage to Haussmann

LAN developed for a residential complex in the new Clichy-Batignolles mixed development area (Paris), a building that pays homage to Paris and the 19th century Haussmann’s architecture while looking to the future and to its changes.

LAN, 40 Housing Units, ZAC Saussure Pont Cardinet, Îlot 4.2, Paris. Photo © Julien Lanoo

Lot 4.2 is part of the new Clichy-Batignolles mixed development area and is located at the edge of boulevard Pereire, at the meeting point of two different periods in the history of Paris’ urban development.

The building plays a key role in linking these two architectural worlds.

The project renders homage to Paris and the 19th century architecture of the Haussmann building. It seeks to preserve the “intrinsic intelligence of this form,” which has allowed the buildings constructed during the Haussmann period to survive many changes and grow with the city, providing multiple, often very different uses of the same building.

The volume is a perfect extrusion of the triangular parcel which fully exploits all the plot’s spatial possibilities. Through its flexibility, the project introduces the notion that by emptying an architecture of its program, a building generates potential that will accompany the evolutions in urban development and allow it to respond more readily to changes in use.

The rue de Saussure building seeks to anticipate needs and changes by proposing a full reversibility between a residential and an office building.

At the same time, this sense of openness gives each residence a very particular quality. The apartments have a lot of windows and are very well lit and spacious. They are all set up around a loggia, an extension of the interior living space towards the exterior. This type of patio also has a thermal function, introducing a new orientation in the building that helps ventilate the housing during the summer months.

Above and beyond the classic, standard ratio, the mostly glass facades significantly enhance the quality of the building’s uses, which benefit from an abundance of natural light and views.

The size and regularity of the door and window openings, which are identical on the three facades, create a general image of the building without specifically denoting its use. A series of architectural distinctions on the facades compensates for the different levels of thermal comfort required on the northern and southern sides. The variations play out in the size of the openings – French doors which open fully to the south versus half-height windows to the north – in the position of the windows in relation to the facade, which use its thickness to create an interior projected shadow, in the position of the stores, inside and outside, as well as in the materiality of the railing, which is made of glass or stainless steel mesh.

The materials favor a certain sobriety and are limited in number: polished concrete tinted black for the prefabricated panels for the facade, black lacquered aluminum for the concealed opening frames, glass for the windows, both for the half-height windows and the railings, stainless steel mesh, etc.