Les Étoiles

Les Étoiles („The Stars“) in Ivry-sur-Seine, 5km south-east from Paris center, is an enigmatic rising conglomerate of buildings, a mountain range of acute angles and crystal-like terraces, leafy cascades of cultivated and spontaneous plants, an intricate system of plazas, a pedestrian public circulation as articulate as corals. The three buildings named Les Étoiles were designed in the 1970s by the architects Jean Renaudie and Renée Gailhoustet and they are part of an ambitious 105 hectares of estate that includes 10 buildings, the entire urban project launched by the municipality in the late 1950s was overseen by Gailhoustet.

The studio will focus on this large project that refuses a programmatic separation as the entire compound includes an articulate spatial scheme of housing (38% of which is social housing), offices, public and commercial facilities, creating not only a rich and complex urban life but also the ground for a lush vegetation that enforces the social, ecological, and microclimatic quality of this place – „the roof of one apartment forms a triangular terrace and roof garden for the one above. The pocket-gardens, each containing a depth of soil sufficient to grow what are now mature trees, are arranged to allow residents to socialize from one to the next […]. This arrangement allows long-standing neighbors to sustain an ongoing exchange, with neither required to venture beyond their own private space; a form of public interaction that encourages participation in spite of the uncertainty that surrounds certain aspects of the Étoiles scheme.“ (Merien Chabani & John Edom, 2019)

The studio is organized around an initial cartographic site exploration during an excursion to Paris (28.10 – 01.11) with guided visits and survey of the site in Ivry-sur-Seine. The architectural project and program will result from the understanding of this specific site and the question of how to learn from and contribute in a form of experimental „Weiterbauen“ to the ecology of The Stars of Paris.

Excursion to Paris: 04.11. – 08.11.2024

First meeting and introduction:
Thursday, 10.10.24, 10:00 am, room N201