Synopsis
Architects, authors, and photographers – different viewpoints on a dense and complex building in Paris’s 20th arrondissement. Located just above the city’s eight-lane ring road, this “calm block” was recently completed by Parisian architecture firms Chartier Dalix and Avenier Cornejo, which combines a kindergarten with 240 studio apartments for young workers – in a rapidly changing neighbourhood. The photographer Myr Muratet, who spent several weeks living there, offers us an authentic reportage of the building’s appropriation by its new inhabitants – a portrait of what happens once the architects have packed up and gone home. Its users’ behaviour, habits, and adaptations confirm or subvert the designers’ intentions. As the building weighs anchor in its neighbourhood, not only does the alchemy of this process resonate in the immediate surroundings, but also further afield, in the wake of individual users’ destinies. Inquisitive visitor Sébastien Marot sets sail on an urban and architectural cruise, exploring the physical, social, and historical flux that is the undercurrent of this built reality.
About the Authors
Created in 2006 by Pascale Dalix and Frédéric Chartier, Chartier-Dalix architectes is composed of 29 people. Through its projects, the office has worked on several types of programs and sites. Their projects reveal a marked sensitivity to the complexity of uses and contexts: they are always relevant, innovative and generous solutions in terms of both formal and programmatic consistency. Their projects have been widely reviewed and published in national and international magazines. Chartier Dalix architectes has received various awards, such as the Europe 40 under 40 Award (2012), and the « prix de la première œuvre », awarded by the Moniteur Group (2009) for a sport hall in Meaux.
Christelle Avenier and Miguel Cornejo (born in Chile) founded their firm in Paris in 2008. They were selected as one of the "Europe 40 under 40" 2014 architecture firms, which awards emerging young architects. In the wake of this, Avenier Cornejo is in the design phase on various projects: housing, sheltered accommodation, children’s facilities, and medical installations; and in the construction phase on several other projects in Paris. The firm’s approach is above all inventive. Each project gives rise to a process of reflection, each expectation has several possible answers but, whatever the architectural desire, the goal is to bring about a fertile reaction.
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