A few years ago seemed which to break down was simple, inexpensive and logical. Really? In fact, you had to think less, not had to think about how to talk with preexistence. It was cheap, but exponentially more expensive in increasing ecological footprint that we all pay and unpayable in the loss of the ontological conditions of the place. And logical?, No, not logical, absurd yes. So this summer when Anne Lacaton calmly explained her project to remodeling a building in a suburb of Paris - next project-, it appeared that the logic and intelligence recovered, in other hand, was simple, so simple that it seemed obvious . Here we leave your project and, Hat tip! for Lacaton and Vassal.

Built in the early sixties along the ring road of Paris, this high rise block of 16 storeys includes 96 apartments. The demolition, firstly envisaged, has been avoided and a project of transformation decided. The project by Lacaton & Vassal propose a generous extension of the apartments.

New floors, built as a self-supporting structure, are added on the periphery of the existing building at every floor, to extend the living rooms, create closeable terrasses and balconies. The existing facades with small windows will be removed and replaced by large transparent openings, so that the inhabitants will profit of the exceptionnal view on Paris all around.

Groundfloor the entrance hall will be refurbished. The floor will be made on a level with the exterior.

The volume will be releases of all useless rooms and installations to become a free and transparent space from the entrance to a new garden created on the back of the building. Rooms for collective activities will be etablished on the sides of the hall. Two lifts will be built to improve the access to the apartments.

The structure will be designed with prefabricated elements so that the inhabitants can stay in the apartments during the construction works.

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Architects
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Frédéric Drouot, Anne Lacaton et Philippe Vassal. With Adis Tatarévic, Florian de Pous, Miho Nagashima, Caroline Stahl, Mario Bonilla, David Pradel, architectes collaborateurs with VP & Green engineers structure, Inex, engineers systems, E.2.I, cost estimate, Jourdan, acoustics, Vulcanéo, fire security consultant.
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Location
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Paris 17°, Tour Bois le Prêtre. Paris, France.
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Year
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2011
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Type
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Housing
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Status
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Built / réalisé.
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Size
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8.900 m² existing + 3.560 m² extension.
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Client
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Paris Habitat
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Cost
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€ 11,4 M net.
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Lacaton & Vassal. Anne Lacaton and Jean Phillippe Vassal created the office in 1989, based in Paris. The office has a practice in France, as well as abroad, working on various buildings and urban planning programs.

Anne LACATON was born in France in 1955. She graduated from the School of architecture of Bordeaux in 1980, and got a diploma in Urban Planning at the university of Bordeaux in 1984. She is teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Madrid since 2007, and was invited in 2011 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, as well as in Harvard GSD Studio in Paris in 2011.

Jean Philippe VASSAL was born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1954. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Bordeaux in 1980. He worked as an urban planner in Niger from 1980 to 1985. He is professor at UdK Berlin since 2012, and has been a visiting professor at the TU in Berlin in 2007-2010, and at the Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne in 2010-11.

Main Awards, the Grand Prix National d’Architecture, France, 2008, the Rolf Schock Prize, visual arts category, Sweden 2014, the Daylight & Building Components Award, Velum Fonden, Denmark, 2011, and the International Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2009, the Equerre d'Argent award 2011, with Frédéric Druot, France. Their work has been shortlisted several times and twice finalist for the Mies Van der Rohe Award, European Prize for Contemporary Architecture.

The main works completed by the office are: the FRAC, Public Contemporary Art Collection, in Dunkerque, France; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Site for contemporary creation ; social housing and student housing in Paris ; a music and polyvalent hall in Lille ; the Café for the Architektur Zentrum in Vienna ; a School for Business and Management in Bordeaux ; the Architecture school in Nantes, and significant housing projects in France such as the House Latapie, Bordeaux ; the House in the trees, facing Arcachon Bay, the "Cité Manifeste" in Mulhouse. They are now working on the transformation of modernist social housing : the Transformation of Tour Bois le Prêtre in Paris (with Frédéric Druot, architect), in St Nazaire la Chesnaie and in Bordeaux Grand Parc (with F Druot and Ch. Hutin, architects). All these projects are based on a principle of generosity and economy, serving the life, the uses and the appropriation, with the aim of changing the standard.

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