The First Two Floors...

The ground floor is the most important floor in the moderation between public and intimate spaces. Firstly instead of allowing entrance into the commercial properties directly from the street, one must enter the building from which two doors lead to the café bar and then to the courtyard and the cohousing day care facilities.
Although this may seem like a lot of doors, using the common entrance to the building for the commercial properties in fact reduces the number of thresholds in a typical Parisian residential building. However, it increases the awareness of who is coming and going and when, as it forces every person to pass by someone who lives or works in the building.
There are no individual residences on the ground floor. It holds half of the café, half of the day care space, the office for the cohousing community, and the cohousing's communal space which includes kitchen and dining facilities large enough to seat 28-30 people.
The first floor hosts the second half of the café, the second half of the daycare and one of the largest individual family units boasting 3 bedrooms and living/dining room + kitchenette in 72m2 (775sq.ft.)


Also on the 1st floor, between the stairwells is a guest unit for the cohousing community, that is available for guests of residents.

The Building's Recent Past

48 rue faubourg poissonnière's recent past offered a rather similar to living situation to cohousing. Although it didn't sport any fancy titles, nor were the residents organized on any fancy committees.

The residents were all recent immigrants to France. Their lifestyles reflected much more rural, family/clan based organization, but seemed to live quite peaceably in what most people would consider VERY small spaces.

Their story is all in french, but for those who don't read french, there are some very interesting images.

http://www.picturetank.com/___/series/409caf437cb454839fa65af7eaaa6c15/48_rue_du_Fbg_Poissonni%C3%A8re_(office).html

The Abstract of the Day

My interests in historical typologies and adapting existing buildings for contemporary use led me to my choice of a vacant building on the limit of the 10th Arrondissement as the site for my thesis project.

The history of Parisian society and the trends of its architecture and urban development from 1540 to present day combined with the study of the impact of modernity’s spatio-temporal acceleration and the alienation between self and other make up the background research.

My thesis attempts to understand and offer a solution to the conflict between the self and the porosity, transparency and speed that resulted from modernity; a solution to the dichotomy between the human need for intimacy and a connection with the other in the urban context of Paris.

The Ethos

These are the 10 design ethos that I did for my last project. The process definitely helped me figure out exactly what I was doing in terms of the design. I realize the writing is probably illegible. I'll copy it into another post. For now, enjoy the images.