The collective house

A place named Home

 

As a reaction to the colossal scale of the “Grand Paris” layouts and missions, the project of The Collective House takes a step backwards in scale and in speed. It aims to deal with the taken-for-granted everyday life in Paris as a student, as a low-class family, as an immigrant or as an individual who seeks for human contact. The project observes the house as a typology and as an analogy of basic human needs. The house provides us not only a place to fulfill our life’s mechanism (eat, rest, wash etc.), but also a place TO BE and to feel belonged to. The sense of “belongingness” is maybe one of the most important functions of the place we call home, both to the individual and as a cultural archetype.

From Home to The Collective House

The Collective House thus deconstructs specific functions from the house-archetype (salon, kitchen, armoire, bathroom etc.) and reorganizes them in relation to a communal scale and with a clear economical notion of living in the 21st century Paris. To manage the program’s needs and the site’s particular features as narrow footprint, high-sloped topography and near railway, an original structural layout was established: it made of 4 separated structures composing one building. Thereby, wood was chosen as a principal material for construction. Constructive timber can resist high pressures, and instaures a warm atmosphere. Its good thermal capacities, way better than steel, makes wood an ideal construction material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author: Rotating Editor Paris