Masséna district building in Paris: by Beckmann N’Thépé

Creating a strong but elegant building in a varied urban context was the concept behind the latest offering by the Beckman N’Thépé architectural office from Paris. With its bold shape and fancy colouring, it looks like they made it.

Reminding me of a New York high - rise planted in Parisian surroundings, the seemingly Brutalism - meets - Art Deco edifice combines strong forms with delicate colouring - yellow and brown uncharacteristically mark its façades. The sculptural shape of the building makes it look lighter than it really is and de-emphasizes the basic material used - concrete.

The demand was for 48 apartments, with commercial spaces and community areas also taken into account. plus a parking lot of 52 places.  All this amounts to 4,850 square meters (of which 630 are the commercial spaces), costing 5.7 million Euros. The finishing date for the project was June of 2007.

The concrete used for the façade, called "autoplaçant" and painted chestnut brown throughout its body, , was poured in situ and roughened up to get the final look. The building also incorporates hanging gardens: a big courtyard above street level. It also uses photovoltaic plates and re-uses the rainwater, getting itself a Qualitel Habitat et Environnement Label.

Developing its autonomy, its identity and its difference, this project is integrated in a greater unit, that of the new Masséna district, in XIIIème district of Paris, and thus takes part with rigour and elegance in the urban ambitions programmed here. Each construction is an additional stake of this piece of town of "Age III".

On the principles imagined by Christian de Portzamparc, the supervisor architect for the whole area, the project cuts out, is refined, carved to reinforce its simplicity in a writing which is clean for him. A fault makes it possible the buildings close to benefit from the "heart to open small island" of the urban planning.

On the crossing of various axes of circulations, this sculpture imposes its density by its major and dark mass and its mathematical play of openings. An iridescent ribbon binds the whole of the studs which this piece composes of ground. The ornamentation is proscribed and omnipresent nature as well finds in a strange way at the ground floor as on the roofs of various volumes by the grace of trees of high-stems.

Work team:

Project leader: Nicolas Gaudard

Architects: Stephan Maîtrejean, Mathilde Malher

Assistant Architects: Amélie Authier, Caroline Huybrechts, Tiphaine Leclère, Aime-Issa N’Thépé

  Study Bureau: STUDY BUREAU TCE: COTEC (Pantin - 93)

Fire protection: Consulting BTP (Clichy - 92)

Consultant landscape: Ecovégétal (Broué - 28)

Control office: VERITAS (Paris)

Co-ordinating SPS: Consulting ANM (German St en Laye - 78)

General Company - HERVE SA