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Office building with a timber structure, seen from the street
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General view of the project from the passage
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View of the small office units in the former workshops
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Overall view of the project from the upper floors
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General view of the project from the passage, at dusk
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General view of the project from the passage, at dusk
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Site plan
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Axonometric view of the project
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Axonometric view of the project - existing volumes and additions
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Floor plan
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Transversal section
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Bioclimatic strategy developed with the new façade on the 1930s office building
206 Lafayette - Restructuring and Densification of a Mixed-Use Block Including Offices, Social Housing and Stores
DATA ARCHITECTES, THINK TANK architecture. Paris, France
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Name of work in English
206 Lafayette - Restructuring and Densification of a Mixed-Use Block Including Offices, Social Housing and Stores
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Name of work in original language
206 Lafayette. Restructuration et densification d’un îlot, à usage de bureaux, logements sociaux et commerces.
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Work Location
Paris, France
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Studio
DATA ARCHITECTES, THINK TANK architecture
Nominees
206 Rue Lafayette in Paris transforms a dense urban plot while preserving 80% of the existing buildings. Through a strategy of architectural addition and subtraction, the project integrates housing, offices, and retail spaces, revealing the site’s richness and balancing heritage with contemporary uses.
Collaborators
Landscape: Atelier Roberta; Structure: EVP; Environmental-Thermal: SINTEO; Economy: BMF; Acoustics: Acoustique Vivie; Façade: VS-A; External work and utilites: AREP
Program
Mixed use - Commercial & Offices
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Labels
Aggregation · Collective housing · Office · Store
Site area
3124 m²
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Client
SNC Cours Lafayette
Total gross floor
10388 m²
Cost
3200 €/m²
At the intersection of Haussmannian and faubourg fabrics, the 206 Rue Lafayette in Paris project transforms a heterogeneous site composed of eight buildings organized around a central courtyard. Based on the conservation of 80% of the existing structures, the intervention favors adjustment and reuse over demolition. Through a strategy of addition and subtraction, it introduces new architectural devices combining housing, offices, and retail, while redefining public spaces and reinforcing the site’s overall coherence.
Each structure was carefully studied to remove degraded volumes, reinforce existing frameworks, and introduce new external circulation systems. The re-vegetated passage opens the site to the outside and enhances user comfort. The project investigates a new way of transforming ordinary architecture, based on adjustment, repair, and extension. By valuing the site’s complexity—its constraints, structural diversity, and historical layering—it goes beyond simple rehabilitation to explore the continuity of uses, materials, and time. This patient approach seeks a balance between heritage and contemporary intervention, revealing a new layer of time adapted to the uses and comforts of the twenty-first century.
The site at 206 Rue Lafayette, dense and heterogeneous, brings together a variety of constructions in wood, concrete, and metal. The intervention, guided by a measured and attentive approach, treats the existing fabric as a complex system whose qualities inform each design decision. Light and precise additions engage in dialogue with the existing structures, revealing the site’s layered evolution. The 1930s industrial building illustrates this approach: its concrete frame is extended by a glass-and-metal façade forming a winter garden with both climatic and spatial roles. External staircases, structural devices, and thickened façades free interior space, enhance use, and connect the buildings. Visible and deliberately expressed, these additions unify the whole while preserving each building’s identity. Two new constructions, combining timber and concrete, continue this logic of contextual adjustment and redefine the site’s relationship with the city