Louis Blanc Social Housing / ECDM

Architects: Emmanuel Combarel Dominique Marrec
Location: Paris, France
Project Manager: Dario Oeschli
Project year: 2004-2006
Client: RIVP (Régie Immobilière de la Ville de Paris)
Engineering: BETIBA
General Contractor: LES MAÇONS PARISIENS
Site Area: 550 sqm
Constructed Area: 1,537 sqm
Photographs: Benoit Fougeirol

The construction of the housing project located 45 Louis Blanc Street in the 10th quarter of Paris is the result of a project launched in 1998 by the Paris city real-estate authority. The property developer was expected to take a piece of land measuring 550 m² and replace an abandoned squat there which had been slotted for demolition with a low-cost building proposing 13 apartments (program specifications), that adhered to the HQE (High Environmental Quality) standards still being determined at the time.

The project is sculpted like a piece of a puzzle, responding exactly to the urban constrains and solicitations of the context. It proposes an unusual typology for the Parisian standards which frees the ground floor to propose on the ground level a landscaped parking, adequate with a small plot, above which 17 apartments seem to float. It ensures a chain reaction -> Minimization of the parking print (suppression of the ramp) -> optimization of the realization planning: minus 3 months -> Optimization of the budget: 15% -> Redefinition of the project economy -> and so on…

The environmental attitude has systematically aimed to dissolve the technical and contextual subjections in the architecture of the building and manage maximum potentialities of the construction (Post and beam structure allowing any recomposition of the volumes, etc.)