Lacaton & Vassal

Ourcq Jaures Student & Social Housing . Paris

Lacaton & Vassal . photos: © Philippe Ruault . + archdaily

The building is located in the 19th district of Paris, between the Ourcq canal and the ‘petite ceinture’ railroads, today out of use. The neighborhood is in complete restructuring, with the construction of many dwellings buildings.

The building operation includes 98 students dwellings and 30 social dwellings as well as a specialist care home and 3 shops. The project provides spacious dwellings and gives, as much as possible, the opportunity to the inhabitants to enjoy the 2 situations: on the garden and on the street.
All the social dwellings are running through or double-oriented. The living rooms and kitchens are on the garden side and open on to a 2,10m deep wintergarden, south or south-east orientated, from 9 to 28 sqm, extending in a 1m deep balcony. The bedrooms and main bathrooms, well glazed, are on the north façade, and open on to a continuous balcony.
The students dwellings, from 19 to 23 sqm, open on a balcony by a large window, on the street side. On the garden side, most of the rooms open on to a 3,70 sqm wintergarden extending in a balcony. Inside, the prefabricated bathrooms are optimized to offer more space to the living room.
On the garden side, the ground floor is used by the specialist care home program, hosting 6 permanent residents. The rooms and living spaces benefit the south-east orientation. They open on a garden, planted with simple flowering strain species. On the street side, the ground floor is occupied by the shops.
The wintergardens and balconies give each dwelling a privative outdoor space that offers the possibility to live outside in a collective context, while being home. Combined with thermic and shadow curtains, they insure a fonction in the winter and summer indoor climatic conditions (thermal comfort) and savings on energies, within a bioclimatic approach.
Essential to the life quality in an urban context, these privatives outdoor spaces make the appartment conditions closer to the facilities and pleasure you can have in an individual house.