L’Astrolarbre – Paris, France

[pic 1]L’Astrolarbre – Paris, France

 [pic 2]

Those pictures shows “l’Astrolarbre” which is a housing french project comprising 12 social dwellings in Paris.

Those housing are located in a small impasse between the Montparnasse tower and Vaugirard street in a faubourg Parisian district, there are 12 social housing units, including four units rehabilitated and 8 units are new housing.

 “l’Astrolarbre” project, began in 2003, and it was part of the upgrading operations of unhealthy habitats decided by the city of Paris.

The project's name is a contraction between its location on "villa de l'Astrolabe" and the french word for a tree, "arbre".

During the building works, they discovered a maple tree that had grown unattended along very derelict old buildings.

The architects of the building could not imagine cutting it down and since keeping it was a sort of small challenge that they decided all the project would be centered on it.

The architects decided to incorporate the sprawling tree into the design of the 12 housing units

Then the starting point of the project was:  are they able to build houses with wood in Paris? and especially are they able to keep the tree until the end of the building works?

The answers are: yes!

As we can see in the pictures the tree is still there , we can see it from the street through the cut in the façade of the building , the staircase are  literally climbs alongside the tree and all living rooms are turned towards it.

With this special idea the architects wanted to gives a sort of protective cover and a “very delicate relation to nature and seasons”.

The highlight of the project was to continue the idea of ​​building wooden, limiting consumption of electrics in the common portions, recovering rainwater in order to water the garden of the central courtyard with the tree, solar Panels for hot water.

This project seems to offer specific qualities of individual social housing in terms of its scale, unit distribution and material.

Living together is the main point of the project, for example the communal use of the courtyard (with a barbecue, big table, children playground …) or the use of the garden (growing vegetables, picnicking, playing …)

The Construction of “l’Astrolarbre” was completed in 2007.

Lexique:

• social dwellings: logements sociaux
• Impasse: Une impasse
• social housing units: logements sociaux
• unhealthy habitats: habitats insalubres
• the upgrading operations: opérations de modernisation
• the building works: travaux de constructions
• a maple tree: un arbre érable
• derelict old buildings: vieux bâtiments abandonnés
• the sprawling tree: l’immense arbre
• the staircase: un escalier
• protective cover: un couvercle de protection
• rainwater: eau de plui
• Central courtyard: la cour intérieure
• building wooden : construction en bois
• common portions: parties communes

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