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Social Housing in Paris

The two completely different facades of this building, designed by inSpace Architecture to host social housing and a mother and child welfare center, reflect two distinct aspects of reality: life on the boulevard, and life in the heart of the city block.

inSpace Architecture, 73 boulevard de la Villette, Paris

The project at 73 boulevard de la Villette in the 10th arrondissement of Paris comprises 14 units of social housing for the SIEMP and a Mother and Child Welfare Center (Protection Maternelle et Infantile, or PMI) for the Department of Families and Infants (DFPE) of the city of Paris.

The integration of the project into the lot demonstrates the intention to set up a building that assimilates the composition with the context, its morphologies and urban specificities, and thus designed as an element that reflects its environment. The building expresses two distinct aspects of reality: life on the boulevard, and life in the heart of the city block. This duality is developed at various levels of the building’s conception.

The facade on the boulevard de la Villette, with encumbered with more important acoustical constraints than the rest of the block, is in concrete insulated from the exterior, whereas the facade overlooking the calmer core of the block is comprised of a wood frame. The treatment of the facades was designed to reflect these two distinct ambiances. On the boulevard de la Villette side, the building’s smooth facade contrasts with adjacent facades. The desire to develop a harmonious relation with the other facades led the architects to borrow formal elements from them for a reinterpretation. This facade, a composition of a smooth image completely free of any ornament, takes advantage of the seasonal changes of the trees lining the boulevard, forming a backdrop for the constantly changing shadows, density of reflections and colors.

The volumetry of the inner courtyard side is on the scale of a house, in a world protected from the agitation on the boulevard. The facade of the upper floors is in wood, a warm and natural material, which, in the context of the view of the planted terraces, offers a comforting and pleasant vision to the building’s occupants.