A breath of fre
Members of the Council of Paris revised the urban regulations for the
Masséna-Bruneseau sector in Paris’ southeasterly 13th arrondissement at the
end of 2011. This amendment allowed the construction of residential towers
measuring 50m tall, and of office blocks measuring up to 180m tall. The Home
Building by Hamonic+Masson & Associates, is one of the first completed.
F
unctioning as one single building and offering social housing and home
ownership opportunities, the project links the rigidity of the Avenue de
France, the railway landscape, the entrance to the adjacent Ivry suburb and
ultimately the transition from a horizontal city to a vertical one.
Alongside the attraction of being the first high-rise to be built in the city
since the 1970s, the location of the project is an
important contextual consideration. As the last
avenue to be constructed in Paris within the
‘Paris Rive Gauche’ urban redevelopment
scheme, (launched in 1991) and having important
links with the ‘Grand Paris’ (the metropolitan urban
redeve lopment plan currently being undertaken
to relink central Paris with its suburban areas),
this project represents many important
themes currently being discussed within
the context of Paris’ evolution as a
metropolitan city. The location of
the building was an important
starting point when considering the
design of the project.
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africandesignmagazine.com