OFFICE 174

The Caserne de Reuilly – a former military barracks in the east of Paris – has been renovated and transformed to provide 600 units of mixed-use social housing. In collaboration with NP2F, OFFICE worked on Lot C in the northern corner of the complex. Combining a reused nineteenth-century building with three new constructions inserted into the existing voids, the project provides a total of 120 rental apartments. Large window openings and a ceiling height of 2.9m create a generous sense of space in the social housing. The otherwise simple entrance halls contain artworks – site-specific marble tableaux – by Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel. The geometry of the rectangular volumes is distorted to meet distance requirements and allow for passageways, making a visual connection between the street and the central public garden. The resulting ensemble forms a complex piece of city where new and old buildings share common features. The tripartite facades are defined by a lower level clad in concrete slabs, a middle rendered section divided by a balcony, and a recessed top floor that forms a terrace. The facades of all three new buildings have a single window type spaced at varying intervals, giving each of them a distinct identity as a member of the same family.