For those of you who like the “funky colors”, praise should go to the photographer, because in real life it just looks cheap and plastic.

I think this building is a good illustration of the housing problem in Paris and France in general. The actual flats are very poorly designed, the entire building is done to a minimum, just following the demands of the OPAC (Office Public de la Construction, who thought it posh to rename themselves “Paris Habitat”), packing in as many apartments as possible and disguising the lot behind a funky skin.

Don’t get me wrong, I think its great to be building that density of affordable homes (Paris definitely needs more of them !) but I can’t help noticing the giant schism between the housing market and other sectors of construction, the costs have been squeezed so tight that any real research of quality is made impossible. Add to that the excessive building regulations that apply in the city and the result is a building like this one.

Its shape is defined directly by filling the maximum buildable volume (notice the stepped facade on the rear of the building, to respect a 45˚angle from the void on neighboring plot).

All apartments are done to a minimal standard, with absolutely no concern for the living quality of each unit (would you like living in the ground floor units, under the rest of the building???), each unit is defined by its marketable surface, just look at how a big portion of the corridors have been integrated to the last apartments, this space although uncomfortable and unusable is counted in the floor space of the unit, artificially boosting the surface ratios.

It seems to be accepted by most architects in France that you can no longer do interesting housing projects and it has become standard practice to just “have fun” with the facade and splash some green paint around. I am personally very worried by the widespread use of these “AMC facades” (they seem to make every cover of this french architecture magazine), using a “random looking” patchwork of “Nippon clip-on” plastic with a module of 600mm DOES NOT CREATE A FACADE, it is just a skin, an absence of decision, some sort of universal white-wash “solving” the problem of the buildings expression and avoiding a difficult work of relating with the Haussman style facade of the street.

Building in Paris is very difficult, as I mentioned before the regulation is very complex, and the protection of Paris’s perceived beauty has led to a very conservative approach to urban planning. As a result of this, there are two categories of projects: Jean Nouvel-like orgies of excessive color, boxy shapes and total disregard for anything concrete like budgets, planning and so on (gouverment support needed) and the others, struggling to survive. I was speaking a few weeks ago with students from one of the leading French architecture schools (internationally (NOT)recognized EAVT of Marne-la-Vallee) and especially those doing a Masters on the subject of Habitat, and was terrified to see that they have ALL come to accept that housing projects will always be linked to many mundane aspects like regulations and economy much more so then other typologies and as a result of this HOUSING HAS TO BE BORING !!!

Although the budgets for housing are of course smaller and less flexible then other programs I am convinced that it IS possible to do cheap AND interesting housing, as often seen in Holland for example.

What do you guys think about this??

The architect is getting the moral and ethical publicity, the mayor is getting his quota, and behind closed doors his extra money from the builders, the bourgeoisie is getting low cost rent for their kids so they can finance their private school inside Paris.

We call it System D, you call it French System…