TEXT_The building on the avenue Daumesnil readdresses the typology of the office building. The architect inverts the rules of the game by proposing a largely-glazed façade to the street and a largely-closed, metal-clad internal façade which overlooks a courtyard treated like the deck of a ship.
A subtly located street entrance permits visitors to climb a few steps in order to reach this upper level courtyard from where external walkways and a lift serve the various levels. Here, the typical features of social housing – concrete paving slabs, plastered façades, projecting sills, PVC – are no longer to be found. The entire constructional approach, and the almost exclusive use of dry construction methods, is devoted to the search for modernity. An eight-storey steel frame is built upon the concrete base and this framework, with its diagonal bracing, defines the building grid of 5.20m.