Office Building and housing

Paris, 9th arrondissement, one of the richest in architectural diversity, mixing dense housing environment, industrial constructions, establishments of entertainments, religious buildings and mansions intimately. 32 Blanche street was born in the first years of the 20th century: a rational, effective buildingwarehouse builds to supply Galleries Lafayette; and very mistreated by the 60ies which made it up of fillers and useless masonries. To preserve and restore the utility, the energy, the influence of such buildings is a part from now on of stakes in the future of our cities. An enclave, an insertion, an inclusion. Restore the reading of its structures, the transparency and the luminosity of its skin, the legibility of its organization and in the daylight inside. Find the useful urban instrument. Useful by the quality of workplaces, services, spaces.

Urbain by its relationship with the street which it accompanies in its slope and extends by its hall, by the habitability of its terraces, its participation in the play of the Parisian horizons, the distant landscape that it abounds. 36 and 38 street Blanche (the 18th end and the 19th beginning) become housing again; the main building is reborn for offices: in its heart, the light penetrates into the depth of the volumes thanks to the volute of sewn glass pearls. The first quality offered to a building in town, especially here and in this city, is surely the city all around. It is the insertion of the building in the Parisian thickness, and the mutual enrichment of which show now every view, every returning courtyard, every centred pinion, every transported tree and the surprise renewed by so many confrontations testifying of a politeness. Studies and construction were led in 3 years 1/2 in a very contained budget for 23 600 squared meters. The building, today, lives very well.