100 social apartments

The program is for a combination of different-sized apartments, the ground floor being designed for handicapped persons, and some shops at street level. In this project we had to create three separate buildings on fragments of left-over land that had been created from a series of different factors, such as site views, Hausmannian setback rules, preservation of ancient trees, unbuildable land rules...After understanding how difficult these requirements would be and how they would impact on the site, we decided to create these buildings more as resultant elements from the urban space. Conceptually we proposed a huge urban matrix in three dimensions, with the imagined floors generating the increment, we then went through a careful cutting and coring of this matrix with the above series of forces acting as provocative devices until defining the finished project. A series of filters on deep planted loggias, permit wind or sun protection. In this project we followed as the environmental procedure Qualitel with the label Habitat and Environment. The apartments are facing several orientations, with double orientation most of the time and similar in superposition in all of the levels. The apartments are distributed by large exterior walkways which offer by extension, a new public space for each apartment. The apartment type is adapted to a bioclimatic concept adapted to the different seasons. The rooms orientated to the north have small openings and a greater thermal isolation to the outside. Facing south the living rooms and bedrooms are glassed floor to ceiling giving to a generous balcony protected by the overhang. In winter time, the balconies can be used as winter gardens, by an exterior transparent store made of ETFE. This system is conceived to entrap the free calories produced by the sun and thus warm the rest of the apartment space. Solar thermal panels mounted on the roof, produce 65% of the hot water for the bathrooms. The landscape space is conceived in three layers i.e: ground floor public garden, private balcony garden and facetted roof scape integrating solar panels. The project is thus the result of urban and ecological rules taken as the conceptual starting point and alternative determinators in the creation of a new urban housing response.

project: docks en Seine, Cité de la Mode e du Design address: quai D’Austerlitz
client: Icade G3A
data: 2005-2008
surface: 20.000 sqm
site: Quai Austerlitz, Paris 13ème
program: Institut Français de la Mode, conference hall, restaurant, shops, promenade
cost: 25.000.000 euro
landscape: Michel Desvignes
lighting: Yann Kersalé

Jakob+MacFarlane is an architectural firm based in Paris, France. Its work explores digital technology both as a conceptual consideration and as a means of fabrication, using new materials as a possibility to create a more flexible, responsive and immediate environment. Main projects to date include the T House at la Garenne Colombes, Paris, France (1998), Restaurant Georges at the Pompidou Centre, Paris (2000), the reconstruction of the Theatre of Pont-Audemer, France (1999–2000), the Florence Loewy Books by Artists Bookshop in 2001, Maison H project in 2001, the Communication Center for Renault and the Maxime Gorki theatre in 2004. Current projects include the Docks of Paris project, which includes a fashion and design center, and three buildings for the 100 Apartments project in Paris, both due for completion in 2007. Jakob+MacFarlane regularly participate in invited competitions, including the New Media Center (la Gaite Lyrique) in Paris and the new City Center and Casino in Knokke-Heist in Belgium. They have just won the competition for the New FRAC architecture exhibition center in Orléans, a Dance and Music Conservatory in Noisy-le-Sec and two buildings on the Docks of Lyon.