Apartment living is often seen as a consolation to the more spacious and private single-family home. In fact, 80 per cent of French citizens say they would rather live in a house than a flat. But it’s a statistic Paris-based firm Hérault Arnod Architectures is hoping to change with its most recent housing project: a 92-unit building that adopts the typical hallmarks of domestic architecture with the aim to make collective living more appealing.
Located on a former industrial site in the western Parisian suburb of Rueil-Malmaison — once home to a weapons producer, and later a manufacturer of car parts — the building is bordered by the ZAC de l’Arsenal — a 26-hectare mixed-use eco-district that transformed a former industrial and military brownfield site — on one side, and a low-rise residential neighbourhood on the other. The massing was designed to mediate those two very different scales, stepping down gradually in height to engage with the neighbouring development while keeping shadows to a minimum.
Like the vast majority of traditional Parisian apartment blocks, the building is organized around a central courtyard, with a cooling water feature at its core, a pool that collects rainwater from the roofs. This configuration gives residents access to daylight on both sides, and views to both the street and the garden. Every unit — a mix of affordable rentals, subsidized ownership and market-rate housing — also has access to private outdoor space in the form of a balcony or terrace.
Though each of the three housing categories is clustered together for ease of management and accessed by its own staircase, from the exterior, the building reads as a unified whole: The entire structure is made of sand-coloured precast concrete — a material chosen for its economy and durability, with a ribbed surface treatment that lends the façade a pleasing rhythm. This pattern is echoed in the metal screens that protect the balconies.
The building’s democratic design approach is also reflected in its circulation strategy. Residents must all enter the complex through the same large open porch, passing through the garden en route to their unit. Exterior corridors add to the life of the building, increasing the opportunity for spontaneous encounters.
There are plenty of shared amenities that encourage social mixing. At street level, a glazed community room acts as a bridge between the porch and the street; and on the roofs, planted terraces serve as an outdoor gathering space for residents on the upper floors, while also insulating the building and buffering rainwater for the entire complex.
And while apartment living necessitates giving up a bit of space, the architects have spared no detail to make the experience as convenient as possible. In lieu of underground lockers, which often become a dumping ground for household overflow, the screen between neighbouring balconies doubles as an easy-access storage box. Bike storage was another important consideration: rather than ground-floor parking, which is prone to theft, dedicated lifts lead up to covered landings, each outfitted with charging ports for e-bikes and concealed by climbing plants that bring lush greenery to the building’s exterior.
In this way, the project points toward a more human model of urban development — one that prioritizes soft mobility, social diversity and housing quality as the foundations of a more livable city.
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