RIVE SEINE Macro Lot A5 / TETRARC

Architects: TETRARC Urbanists & Landscape Designer
Area: 9,129 m²
Year: 2015
Photography: Stéphane Chalmeau
Project Team: J.P Macé, Olivier Pérocheau, Michel Bertreux
Planner: SAEM Val de Seine Aménagement
Client: NEXITY_ICADE
City: Paris
Country: France

RIVE SEINE Macro Lot A5 designed by TETRARC is part of the Ile Seguin-Rives de Seine project in Greater Paris, transforming the former Renault factories site. Located in the “Trapeze” sector, Macro Lot A5 includes a secondary school, to be delivered in 2018, and 110 social housing apartments. The buildings feature intricate loggia spaces, modern interpretations of Haussmann mansions, and materials reflecting the area’s industrial history. With diverse apartment types and quality spaces, the project serves as a cultural and aesthetic landmark, continuing the broader urban renewal initiative.

In the “Trapeze” sector, Macro-lot A5 features a secondary school, set for delivery in 2018 (block A) and 110 apartments along its southern edge (block B). This block includes 110 social housing flats above a two-level underground car park.

On Rue Marcel Bontemps, four white building plots, with sharp lines, resemble a large mansion built by Baron Haussmann, rising seven storeys. The interplay of different roof openings, levels, and Mansard-style roofs breaks up the straight lines of the building frontage.

Their simplicity is accented by an extravagant feature: modern loggia spaces between the broken-u fault lines. These loggias form intricate mesh, combining vertical passages accessing four apartments on each floor and one entrance/loggia per apartment. These towers act as totems for the district, highlighting the importance of private outdoor space in the modern city.

As the suburb of Plessis-Robinson and the early 20th-century guinguette cafes, the standout feature is the unusual entrances/loggias ensuring residents’ privacy through interwoven riveted aluminium. This material references the area’s industrial history without nostalgia, offering pure and simple joy of living through the building’s simplicity and quality.

Begins the frontage, next to the future secondary school on block A, lies a reference to Parisian urbanism: a private road lined with family homes. There are fifteen properties in a three-storey apartment block with lofts, offering a quieter urban environment, enlivened by external loggia-type extensions with intricate wooden cladding that mirrors light and shade throughout the day.

These projects are separated by a zig-zag pathway, interspersed with silver birch trees. The buildings are connected by a porch on the eastern side, leaving two levels open. The garden, reflecting the block’s introspective nature, is accessed via corridors crossing Rue Marcel Bontemps. These corridors lead to various stairwells in the narrow building at the plot’s end. Surrounded by white-metal and wooden-clad architectural creations, the block’s density is mitigated by windows allowing views of the surroundings.

Offering quality internal and external spaces, a variety of architectural designs, and diverse apartment types, the project is generous for tenants on modest incomes. The buildings of block A5b serve as cultural, aesthetic, and local landmarks, integrating into the site and continuing the wider project’s reflection on new social housing developments.