206 Lafayette
2019 X12
Reinventing the 206 Lafayette doesn’t mean starting from scratch. It means intensifying and stimulating what is already there, the urban and architectural potential of this Faubourg landmark. It does not mean trying to smooth out its difference (in relation to the neighborhoods surrounding it), but on the contrary to build on this difference to develop a new project, innovative in its programs, methods and results.
However, to be sustainably attractive as a place to work and live, 206 Lafayette must respond to a growing desire for urbanity, to make Paris by offering a flexible solution geared to the future needs of users: a more inhabited, livelier, more urban neighborhood, in the sense of a greater diversity of functions and uses and a wider range of time (evenings, weekends, etc.).
As a complement to housing, work must find a more important and visible place there and, above all, be expressed in more contemporary, more “hybrid” forms, in the sense of being less compartmentalized from one another, or even mixed with one another. These issues directly involve the question of the real estate offer and the capacity for innovation that the project will be able to bring out, frame and carry over time.
This project is also emblematic of a situation of urban renewal, on an already densely occupied site, it is as much about producing new objects (office buildings, housing, public or semi-public spaces) as it is about transforming the existing ones.
The challenge of making 206 Lafayette a hypercenter in the heart of the 10th arrondissement, a “Contemporary Metropolitan Hub” from which it can assert its position within the Greater Paris area, implies an attitude of innovation on all levels:
– A public space given back to the service of the residents and for the urban animation of the district.
– Successive landscapes accompany the gaze towards the light.
– The “themed” content and programming
– Materiality, shapes and architectural objects: eco-responsible in a sustainable development strategy combining prefabrication, recycling and flexibility.
– Ensuring historical discontinuity that favours the quality of urban atmospheres and landscapes as well as comfort inside buildings.