---

Located on Boulevard de la Villette, the project brings together and clarifies a site fragmented by successive interventions. The refurbishment builds on the urban presence of the façade and on the building’s structural grid to restore a coherent reading of the site. Circulation routes are simplified, access points rebalanced and the dwellings reconfigured into legible, adaptable volumes.

The intervention adopts a respectful, frugal approach: preserving what can endure, repairing what must be repaired, and transforming only what improves use. The existing structure – loadbearing walls, cross walls and timber or masonry floor slabs – is retained and locally reinforced; lightweight timber additions allow light to be brought in and grids adjusted without overloading the existing fabric.

Materiality is brought back into coherence through the use of traditional techniques: lime render, timber joinery, flat clay tiles, zinc, bio-based insulation, restored floors and stone paving at the heart of the block. The environmental strategy builds on the inertia of the existing building, the use of proven materials and the reconfiguration of outdoor spaces into a mineral and planted landscape.

---