Primary School & Sport Hall

Paris based Chartier-Dalix Architects  was recently announced as the winner for a competition to design a primary school and sport hall in Boulogne Billancourt, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris.

At the heart of the large ongoing urban renovation of the area, this innovative type of school will be mixed with a public gymnasium and be covered with a “living” shell, hosting a wide range of local fauna and flora, from bugs to owls through different species of trees and plants. The matter being to simulate a self-contained ecosystem, a landscape and a view for the surrounding buildings, a rich field of explorations and discoveries for children.

In this complex context, Chartier-Dalix Architects opted for a plain architecture, connecting volumes and functions into a fluid shape. This artificial topography generates hollows and bumps, paths and sheltered areas, with no rupture or arrangement.

Philippe Starck's Renovation of Le Royale Monceau in Paris

Philippe Starck, the famed French interior designer, has unveiled his latest work, a refurbishment of Le Royal Monceau, a palatial old hotel in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. The design alludes to the hotel's 20s-era peak, but with the decidedly modern influence of Starck.

[Photos via Philippe Stark]

Public Housing Building in Paris to be Heated by Metro System

The warmth generated by human bodies in the Parisian metro will help heat a public housing project in the city center, the capital's largest owner of social housing said Friday. The building, located near the Pompidou museum, is being renovated in an environmentally friendly way, due to it's connection to the metro through a stairway. Francois Wachnick from Paris Habitat states that had there not been a way to directly capture the heat from the metro, such as the staircase, the project would have been impossible.

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Design for Parisian Mini-Parks Unites Urban and Natural

Stefan Gzyl's new project “Parc Disponible” is one of the finalists on an international competition recently held in Paris on ways to incorporate nature into the urban environment in original ways. “Parc Disponible” is a glass box enclosing a mini-park for individual use within the city. 

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