April, 2023 - Two recent transformation projects for Paris Habitat have been published in the last issue by ARQ Magazine entitled 'Conditions of Change'. The first one is the transformation of 'Tour des Poissonniers' into student housing and arts residence, a project developed along with 51n4e. The second one is the Transformation of 'Garage Haussmann' into collective housing.
Both projects propose a strategic transformation following the stance of doing 'more with less'.
Excerpt by the editor Stephannie Fell :
"If buildings are systems of layers occupying the same space at the same time —or for our purposes here, any conceptualization that asserts that they’re not static objects— the issue of change is not a question of when to get rid of them. Like Plan Común reminds us, the key to transformation is articulating both when and what to replace. In their two collective housing projects, this selective decision has a material underpinning —the need to improve circulation systems or replace decaying components— but also expounds a political will: to work with the identity and social fabric of historic and strategically- located architecture. By establishing scales of collective space in new “unit neighborhoods” (Poissonniers) or opening a courtyard at the center of a dense block (Garage Hausmann), both projects alter the experience of inhabiting a fragment of the city, beyond the confines of individual dwelling units."