A new building rises above the Porte-de-Clichy metro station in this north-west area of the capital which has been in full development since The High Court of Paris moved there in 2018to settle in Renzo Piano’s radiant building. One hundred and twenty meters long, a facade clad in caramel colored aluminum shutters, the building is an extension of the Stream building (Philippe Chiambaretta, 2022)right in front House of Advocates (RPBW, 2020). La Métropolitaine houses eighty social housing units, a student residence, a social reintegration center as well as commercial premises and a medical dispensary. Apart from a few gaps, which allow the view to extend to the garden of the Lycée Honoré-de-Balzac, located on the other side, and a slight bifurcation that breaks its volume at the bow, nothing notable distinguishes it from the street at least, of all the newcomers to the housing buildings that are flourishing in the French metropolises.
But sometimes a facade is deceiving. And the quality of the apartments that can be found behind it is by no means standard: original in their typology, in rooms regardless of their size, with generous outdoor spaces and a winter garden. We are at odds with the logic of cost compression that dominates the sector, ie Laurent Girometti and François Leclercq, in a report sent to the Ministry of Housing in 2021considered responsible for the deterioration of housing quality in France.
The environment, however, is hostile. Noisy, polluted, chaotic. To protect the inhabitants, the architects Ignacio Prego Architectures and Thibaud Babled Architectures imposed the winter gardens. The philosophy of their project more generally was designed to reduce inconvenience and allow everyone to make the most of the positive aspects of the situation. The principle of crossing the apartments was thus imposed, so that each accommodation is built around a main room, a large volume in one piece where the air circulates without hindrance, including for studios, which is no small thing.
The quality of materials and finishes
On the south-west side we have the sun, conservatories that warm naturally and metal shutters that provide protection when it’s too hot. On the northeast side we remain in the shade, but in the open air, large loggias, equipped with richly planted planters, maintained by the tenant, allowing you to benefit from an atmosphere made incomparably more pleasant by the trees of the park. , part of which was annexed to the courtyard of the residence.
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