Morland Mixité Capitale
by David Chipperfield Architects Berlin and CALQ
Client Emerige
Award RIBA International Awards for Excellence 2024
A radical reinvention of the former ‘Préfecture de Paris’ on Boulevard Morland in Paris, creating a rich mix of housing, retail and cultural spaces in this revitalised city block.
The “Reinventer Paris” project, led by the City of Paris, set out to combine reuse, remodelling and extension to transform the original 1964 16-storey administrative tower and two nine-storey wings into a dense, mixed used campus, giving greater access to the Seine and the whole complex.
The entire redevelopment has created private and affordable housing, a hotel, a youth hostel, offices, retail, a gallery, a market hall and a childcare facility, all as a layered, dense urban quarter. Two new buildings, which face the boulevard and the Seine, are raised on load bearing concrete, vaulted arcades to create a new public passage from the boulevard to the river.
The extensive and careful refurbishment of the considerable existing buildings, in parallel with the insertion of two new buildings, forms a vital aspect to the reinvention of this city block, alongside the notable environmental benefits of such large-scale building retention.
The strategic layering and overlapping of functions within the new urban plan and section are handled with confidence and care. This skill and judgement at city scale is also applied to the new small-scale insertions and details in the preserved existing facades. For example, the new balconies and storey height windows for each room in the new housing.
The public and inhabitants can also now access the top two floors, which house a mirrored installation by Ólafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann, a bar and restaurant, and give spectacular views across the city.
Within the restructured landscape, planted courtyards and terraced gardens act as water reservoirs and intensive planting. It includes urban agriculture with vertical crops to maximise the growing area and minimise water consumption, promoting biodiversity.
This ambitious redevelopment demonstrates how the vision of the city has been realised, whilst retaining urban continuity and mixing many of the components that support successful city life.
Location: Paris, France
Date of completion: 31/05/2022
Cost: Confidential
Gross internal area: 59300 m²
Contractor: Bouygues
Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant: CB économie
Local Architect: BRS-Architectes
Structural Engineer: Somete
Services Engineer, Building Physics: Barbanel Ingénierie
Structural Engineer and Facade Consultant: Bollinger & Grohmann
Art Installation: Studio Other Spaces
Sustainability: Etamine
Landscape Architect: Michel Desvigne Paysagiste
Urban Agriculture: Sous les fraises
