23 Teams Selected to Reinvent the Future of Paris

Written by Kaley Overstreet
Published on February 08, 2016

Réinventer.paris has announced the 23 winners chosen to develop architectural projects in Paris, including designs by Sou Fujimoto, David Chipperfield, and DGT Architects. Réinventer.paris is an urban initiative launched to give designers the power to rethink and reshape the way that Parisians live, work, and play. Located on various sites chosen by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, each project successfully creates a sense of liveliness and embodies what the future of Paris might be. The call for submissions was answered with ideas about innovation, cutting edge-solutions to environmental problems, and intelligent design.

David Chipperfield’s design, realized in collaboration with Calq Architecture and Olafur Eliasson, is situated within a site that displays a historic fifty meter high building. This building, which offers an unbroken 180 degree panorama view of Paris, also stands on the banks of the Siene. Once complete, Chipperfield’s integrated mixed-use design will include an inhabitable instillation, housing, a hostel, offices, retail, hotel facilities, and a grocery store. Paris-based Michel Desvigne also collaborated with Chipperfield and designed the landscape features.

Japan-based Sou Fujimoto in collaboration with Oxo Architects and Philippe Starck designed a building to be constructed in the “perishing” plot. The existing site locates a car park and bus station. Fujimoto’s design aims to create a cradle of biodiversity within the city with their architectural model called “A Thousand Trees”. The goal is for these trees and this building to become the new symbol of urbanism in France.