Page 9 - MODUS NEWS 03
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Photograph, renderings, and image by Hamonic + Masson
Zac Masséna
This mixed-use complex is the first of its kind in Paris. Its conceptualization follows the adoption of uncapping buildings and increasing them to be 50 meters high.
The program consists of ground floor shops opened to the Avenue de France. The first floors are reserved for free-ownership housing while the upper floors are for social housing.
HAMONIC + MASSON makes no distinction between social housing
and classic, collective housing. Studying light in housing is what drives their directions with the concept of heliotropism in mind. Even with a program for 200 units, there is no sense of repetition. The apartments are overlapping, but nevertheless each one is unique. This results in many spaces that vary with altitude, releasing a multiplicity of views.
Regarding sustainable development, the agency applies numerous, existing standards, but it prefers to work with passive, rather than high- tech, solutions. The goal is to return to common sense while keeping the sun’s movement in mind and striving for dual-orientation, with windows in two different orientations for better light, comfort, and natural heating but without forgetting good exterior insulation. Solar panels were considered and heating is supplied by a substation of district heating.
This project demonstrates that one must not dramatize the fact of living in height, and that it is a privilege to live in such places. HAMONIC + MASSON wants to work the height, with the hope of removing the ceiling in Paris and France in general.
HAMONIC + MASSON was created in 1997
by Gaëlle Hamonic and Jean-Christophe Masson. The Paris-based agency was awarded the 2011 AMO Special Saint-Gobain Prize for the realization of 62 apartments in Paris’ 12th Arrondissement, and it was nominated in 2003 for the Mies van der Rohe Award.
The agency has completed many projects in dense housing and at complicated sites, as well as cultural facilities, schools and tertiary programs.
www.hamonic-masson.com


































































































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