Repair Manual

Repair
Manual
fall 2025

eighteen
case studies

introduction
Repair is rarely spectacular. It resists the logic of the tabula rasa, where buildings, infrastructures,
and landscapes are wiped clean in the name of renewal. Instead, it inhabits the middle ground
between endurance and transformation: a provisional act, a pause, sometimes a compromise, always
a negotiation. To study repair is to step into the space, where design, governance, and collective
imagination entangle.
The Repair Manual is the product of a short, furious week of site visits and conversations across
Paris, undertaken by students from the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture
and Urban Planning and Université Gustave Eiffel. Working together, the group traced repair across
housing estates, infrastructural retrofits, civic monuments, cultural institutions, and landscapes.
What emerged is less a catalog of architectural masterpieces than a comparative atlas of methods.
Each project is parsed through a common framework: form and typology, phasing and time, materials
and technical practices, social strategies, financing and governance, performance and impact,
ideology and imaginary. Read side by side, the case studies begin to sketch a provisional language of
repair—imperfect, incomplete, but urgently needed.
Why repair, and why now? Paris, like most cities, is shaped as much by its afterlives as by its
inaugurations. Medieval walls, Haussmannian boulevards, postwar grands ensembles, the
périphérique: each layer is not only built but continually reconfigured, maintained, dismantled, and
reimagined. Contemporary repair projects contend with new anxieties: ecological collapse, economic
precarity, social unrest. They also navigate old ones: heritage, permanence, and the politics of
preservation.
The case studies in this manual expose repair as both technique and ideology. On one level, they
demonstrate practical responses: a façade wrapped for energy performance, a public space stitched
into fractured housing, a toxic site remediated into community infrastructure. On another level,
they surface underlying imaginaries: sustainability as a promise, resilience as a mandate, justice
as a horizon. Repair becomes a mirror of collective fears and aspirations, sedimented into the built
environment.
Importantly, the Repair Manual foregrounds collaboration. No single project, institution, or profession
can claim authority over repair. Architects, engineers, policy-makers, residents, and activists all
appear as agents, sometimes aligned, often in tension. The manual indexes these entanglements,
mapping where responsibility lies, how costs and risks are distributed, and what forms of participation
emerge. Repair is as much about governance as it is about construction.
By situating these projects within a comparative frame, this book resists the temptation to
exceptionalize. Instead, it asks: Are there recurring strategies across scales and typologies? Can
we begin to name patterns—incremental phasing, hybrid labor, solidaristic financing—that might
constitute a shared methodology? And if so, what does it mean for architectural pedagogy to pivot
away from growth and novelty toward stewardship, continuity, and transformation?
The Repair Manual, neither definitive nor comprehensive, is provisional. Its value lies in what it makes
visible: the pragmatics and poetics of holding things together in uncertain times, and the recognition
that repair is not a minor act, but an urgent, collective task.

eighteen case studies
NUMBER PROJECT LOCATION DATE
01 Le Centquatre 5 Rue Curial, 19eme 2008
02 Académie du Avenue Rockefeller
Spectacle Équestre Versailles 2010
03 Eden Bio 21 Rue des Vignoles, 20eme 2009
04 La Communale 10 bis Rue de l’Hippodrome,
Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine 2024
05 La Ferme du Rail 2 bis Rue de l’Ourcq, 19eme 2019
06 Le Hazard Ludique 128 Avenue de Saint-Ouen, 18eme 2017
07 Musee de National Palais de la Porte Dorée, 293 Av.
de l’Immigration Daumesnil,12eme 2007
08 Musee de la Chasse 62 Rue des Archives, 3eme 1967
09 Equipment Pinard ZAC Saint-Vincent-de-Paul,14eme WIP
10 Envie - Le Labo 10 Rue Julien Lacroix, 20eme 2021
11 Poincon - Petite 124, 126 avenue du Général-
Ceinture Leclerc, 14eme 2019
12 James Baldwin 10 bis Rue Henri Ribière,19eme
Mediatheque 2024
13 Academie du Climat 2 Pl. Baudoyer, 4eme 2021
14 La Grande CoCo 29 Rue de Soleil, 20eme 2017-present
15 Palais de Tokyo 13 Ave du Pres Wilson 16eme 1937, 2003, 2014
16 Tour Bois la Pretre 6 rue Pierre-Rebière, 17eme 2011
17 Eco-Quartier ZAC Saint-Vincent-de-Paul,14eme WIP
St Vincent-de-Paul
18 La Maison des Canaux 6 Quai de la Seine,19eme 2022

17
04
16
06
15
03
11
02

01
05
18
12
14
10
08
13
09
07

01. Le Centquatre
LOCATION:
5 Rue Curiel, 75019 Paris
YEAR COMPLETED: 2008
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Atelier Novembre, City of Paris, Cantarella, Fisbach
419,800 sf
cultural-infrastructure repair
adaptive reuse
interior as urban substitute
incremental
long term transformation
highly flexible, appropriation integrated into program
material recovery, concrete, glass roofing
masonry envelope, iron trusses, large span halls
moderate
city, partners
construction trades and specialized labor
commissioned
heritage preservation
€150M public, €12M annual operating
public-institutional hybrid model
public subsidy, commercial lease income, programming
culture as a public right, patrimoine, creative economy
City of Paris

Le 104’s origins as a municipal morgue offer a clear
lesson in how architecture can enforce ideology. In
its first life, the building was forcibly inclusive:
every Parisian, regardless of faith or origin,
underwent the same Catholic burial ritual. Part
enforced assimilation, part dystopian universalism,
the policy ensured all citizens exited the world
through the same door. After the morgue closed,
the structure fell into neglect until its 2003
rescue—driven by the mayor’s fascination with its
industrial architecture and folded into a broader
urban-renewal agenda. Reborn as a museum, it quickly
exposed the limits of cultural aspiration. Museums
still carry the ballast of hierarchy and exclusion;
the implicit message is that some publics matter
more than others.
The mismatch was evident. Disconnected from its
neighborhood and out of step with Paris’s shifting
urban conditions, the building continued to
operate through top-down programming. Its next
transformation—into a cultural incubator with
open-ended spaces for artists, shops, restaurants,
and cafés—marked a genuine pivot. The structure
shifted from dogmatic ritual to informal creative
production, affirming what communities already know:
presence and pride emerge from lived activity, not
prescription.
Yet exclusivity persists. Monumental gates,
security checkpoints, barred windows, and opaque
facades create real and perceived distance. Inside,
familiar urban-design cues—legible signage, bold
branding, playful seating, textured surfaces, and
flexible open space—signal welcome. Outside, the
tone reverses: no seating, signage that reinscribes
institutional hierarchy, “informal” creativity
dismissed as nuisance, and barriers that make
entry feel conditional. The building’s internal
legibility is undercut by an exterior that resists
public life.
Its difficult heritage is also unacknowledged—no
trace of the 300 horses once kept in the basement,
the families compelled into Catholic burial rites,
or the building’s shift from mourning to museum.
Le 104 remains a compelling case of adaptive reuse
and urban inheritance, yet its unspoken histories
and defensive exterior keep it suspended between
ambition and outcome—an unfinished project of social
justice, cultural openness, and architectural
reckoning.
20% 3 5 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

02. Académie du
Spectacle Équestre
LOCATION:
Avenue Rockefeller, Versailles
YEAR COMPLETED: 2003
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Patrick Bouchain, Bartabas, Hardouin-Mansart
25,400 sf
aesthetic, programmatic, ethical repair
minimal-impact adaptive reuse
counterpoint to Versaille, space as ethical frame
stabilization, restoration, insertion
2 year reconstruction, 2 decades of operations
low level of adaptability
restored stone masonry, raw timber, atmospheric insert
17C method, light, reversible contemporary construction
low carbon footprint
heritage conservators, craftspeople, Bartabas (cultural
author)
heritage craft, contemporary technical
limited civic participation
reanimating stables with craft, training, performance
public funding for building, private institutional
Château de Versailles, Établissement Public du Château,
du Musée et du Domaine National de Versailles
public funding for architecture, private program
national heritage protection, state stewardship
state carries the architectural risk, the academy car
ies the programmatic risk

Under Louis XIV, the horse became less an animal
than a symbol of royal culture. The Académie du
Spectacle Équestre, adapted in 2003, offers a quiet
counterpoint to Versailles’ gilded theatrics. Where
the palace rehearses hierarchy through shimmering
surfaces and mirrors built for self-regard, the
Académie pursues elegance through restraint. Its
mirrors tilt downward, redirecting attention from
the spectator to the horse. Bartabas, the project’s
author, shifts value from royal vanity to presence,
craft, and labor.
The design is intentional in every detail, but its
subtlety is easily eclipsed by the dominant narrative
of Versailles. Opening the stables to training
and performance invites the public into both the
spatial and choreographic life of the site, even as
it recalls the contradictions of the monarchy that
produced it—an era of artistic patronage shadowed
by militarism and deep inequality.
By preserving the stables without gilding them into
fantasy, the Académie offers a quiet correction.
Yet its critique remains constrained by the
institution it inhabits. Access is limited; much
of its cultural work unfolds behind closed doors.
Even the new preservation campus, positioned at
the site’s edge, operates without full access.
Under Bartabas’s direction, the Académie functions
as both school and stage, reanimating the royal
stables through disciplined training and performed
ritual. It preserves heritage with care, but leaves
an unresolved question in its wake: who, exactly,
is this preservation for?
0% 1 1 4
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

03. Eden Bio
LOCATION:
21 Rue des Vignoles, 20eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2009
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Edouard François architecture, Sophie Barbaux landscape
architecture, BETOM Ingénierie engineering, SICRA
contractor
82,800 sf
fine-grain, ecological, and typological repair
micro infill, block interior occupation
stitching the block interior
block type, eco-renewal, construction, landscape
5 years from commission to completion
limited interior flexibility, semi-flex block use
concrete, masonry, wood, greenhouse glazing, trellises
standard concrete, masonry, lighweight additive systems
low-rise, high-density, vegetal climate regulator
bureau d’Aménagement et de Construction, Paris Habitat
conventional construction labor
everyday participation through use
performative eco-awareness, reframing social housing
Paris Habitat, Public Housing subsidies, rental income
HLM governance system
public investment as urban repair
French social housing mandate (Habitation à Loyer
Modéré), national subsidy mechanisms
absorbed by Paris Habitat and the French public-housing
system—while residents remain protected

Urbanistically, Eden Bio treats densification as a
mode of repair. Instead of wiping clean the 20e
arrondissement’s industrial remnants, it threads
new housing through unused parcels and narrow
passages, preserving the neighborhood’s fine grain
while renewing its interior life.
Architecturally, the project stages individuality
within collectivity. Fragmented volumes and thick
plantings give each dwelling its own identity,
yet the ensemble reads as a continuous porous
landscape—part village, part garden, part city.
It’s social housing that feels almost self-built,
quietly insisting that density and intimacy can
reinforce one another.
Completed in 2009 by Edouard François for Paris
Habitat, the city’s public housing authority, Eden
Bio was financed through a mix of public funding
sources. Historically, the interior of Parisian
blocks served the bourgeoisie, offering calm,
private courtyards hidden from the street. Eden
Bio redirects that spatial privilege to workingclass
residents, densifying a block interior long
occupied by workshops, improvised gardens, and
light industry.
Two parallel alleys flank a central rectangular
building, framed by rows of three- to four-story
“rowhouses.” Each contains two to four apartments
stacked within volumes that present themselves as
single-family homes, masking density in a familiar
urban form. A garage-sized structure conceals the
entrance to underground parking for 53 cars. Semishared
courtyards evoke the private courtyards once
reserved for wealthier residents, while individual
entrances maintain resident autonomy.
Landscape is enlisted as both camouflage and character.
The street-facing buildings are constructed like
greenhouses—an agricultural façade that actually
houses bike storage and mail rooms. Vine-covered
trellises wrap the central building; plants spill
through permeable wooden fences into the alleys. To
support this lushness, the site’s soil was replaced
with deep, fertile beds. Wood fences, stairs, and
balconies soften and disguise the concrete and
masonry beneath, allowing the project to appear
less like infrastructure and more like an inhabited,
growing terrain.
30% 1 2 3
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

04. La Communale
LOCATION:
10 bis Rue de l’Hippodrome, 93400 Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine
YEAR COMPLETED: 2024
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
KOZ Architects, La Lune des Rousse, Frey
80,700 sf
adaptive reuse of industrial heritage
modular interior insertion, programmatic activation
modular, mobile interior landscape, collective field
stabilization, selective demolition, services, interior
4 years from design to opening, ongoing, iterative
highly flexible, reversible, lightweight infrastructure
industrial shell with a flexible, circular material
palette
selective demolition, industrial stabilization, modular
preservation, circular materials, on site fabrication
private sector, Frey, cultural institutions, La Lune,
local communities
professional architects with local artisans
community co-design, everyday reconfiguration
reframing industrial heritage as civic space
public funding, private development from Frey
distributed, Frey oversees operations, La Lune Rousse
cultural life
solidarity-based, redistributive
zoning
private developers, cultural operators

La Communale, in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, occupies
a former 1924 Alstom factory that in 2024 was
transformed into a cultural and gastronomic hub.
Instead of erasing industrial history, the project
turns the factory’s steel skeleton and lofty
volumes into a civic interior: part food hall,
part art space, part communal living room for the
neighborhood.
Developed by KOZ Architects in collaboration with
Frey and La Lune Rousse, the project is driven by
a commitment to transform rather than demolish.
Originally slated for 2022, the intervention
opened in 2024 as a permanent, highly flexible
installation. Modular furniture, mobile partitions,
and lightweight infrastructures allow the space to
shift easily among workshops, concerts, markets,
and pop-up events, letting the building adapt as
community needs evolve.
The design preserves the industrial frame—steel
beams, large spans, high ceilings—while surrounding
it with new programmatic layers. Environmental
impact was reduced by reusing the existing envelope
and incorporating recycled materials. KOZ even
designed the interior furnishings, fabricated onsite
in a temporary “KOZTO” workshop using reclaimed
construction waste and art-transport crates. The
workshop enabled customization while minimizing
transport emissions.
La Communale is shaped as much by its users as by
its architects. Local chefs, artists, and residents
actively participated in shaping the program and
design through a consultation process that invited
proposals from neighborhood cultural actors. Their
input helped produce a multicultural environment
with expansive possibilities—culinary, artistic,
and social.
Through transformation rather than replacement,
the project aims to create an inclusive civic
platform: a place open to children, families,
youth, adults, and marginalized groups, organized
around sustainability, recycled material flows, and
a dramatically reduced carbon footprint.
0% 4 5 4
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

05. La ferme du Rail
LOCATION:
2 bis Rue de l’Ourcq, 19th arrondissement, Paris.
YEAR COMPLETED: 2019
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
Grand Huit Architectes, Mélanie Drevet
9,150 sf
socio-ecological hybrid, circular construction, social
reintegration infrastructure
circular materials, new construction, farm landscape
productive landscape as organizing framework
phased like an ecosystem: repair the soil, landscapes,
build light timber structures, activate the site
through social programs, and evolve seasonally
DURATION: approximately 3 years design to completion (2017-2019)
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
metabolic rather than modular
timber, straw, reclaimed tiles, salvaged components
lightweight timber, bio-based insulation, circular
low carbon construction, bio-based materials, passive
municipality, private sector, cooperatives
professional, self-build, training labor, agricultural
co-design with local actors, community-led programming
cultural production through everyday life
$5M para-public investment, solidarity-commercial
social-insertion,agricultural, hospitality, city
dual economic engine, solidarity and commercial
Réinventer Paris, ecological transition, public-civic
distributes risk across public policy, social programs,
ecological systems, and commercial operations

La Ferme du Rail, designed by Grand Huit Architectes,
is a rare project that treats social inclusion and
ecological repair as the same architectural problem.
Built between 2017 and 2019, it operates as housing,
urban farm, training center, and hospitality venue—
an infrastructure that behaves simultaneously as
building and landscape.
Conceived not as a pop-up but as a durable ecosystem,
the project responds to immediate social needs
while pursuing long-term environmental goals. It
provides employment and reintegration pathways
for vulnerable populations, embedding care work
directly into the architecture. Construction follows
a circular logic: bio-based timber frames insulated
with straw, reclaimed tiles, and modular assemblies
that keep carbon low and adaptability high.
Participation is integral. Supported by Banque des
Territoires and a network of local partners, the
project blends professional labor with co-design and
self-build practices, generating a sense of shared
authorship. Under the “Réinventer Paris” framework,
La Ferme du Rail operates through a mixed economic
model: the restaurant runs commercially, while
profits from other activities are reinvested into
training, social programs, and community services.
Its impact reaches beyond form. By converting waste
into resources and situating marginalized people at
the center of production, the project performs both
environmental and social repair. It functions as
a neighborhood food and cultural hub, but also as
a replicable prototype of inclusive urban ecology.
Rooted in sustainability, equity, and collective
care, La Ferme du Rail reframes the city as a site
of production, learning, and solidarity—showing
how ecological and social resilience can fortify
one another.
70% 4 4 2
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

06. Le Hasard Ludique
LOCATION:
128 Avenue de Saint-Ouen, 18eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2017
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Encore Heureux Architectes, City of Paris,
18th arrondissement local government
16,150 sf
hybrid cultural commons—an adaptive reuse of railway
infrastructure forperformance, hospitality, programming
infrastructural, community-driven reuse intervention
linear social condensor as public armature
stabilization, insertion, long-term activation
3 years, followed by open ended activation
highly flexible, built to adapt, not prescribe
industrial shell, upcycled materials, modular elements
adaptive reuse, selective demolition, module insertions
high impact through vernacular, reversible architecture
architects, municipal policy, cultural workers, volun
teers
professional, collaborative, 1,200+ volunteers
community co-design, volunteer, cultural production
heritage as a civic stage for local cultural production
$2.5M financed by private actors,para-public–bank mix
Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collectif (SCIC)
publicly backed infrastructure, diversified revenue, and
reinvestment into cultural and social programs
heritage reuse, para-public real estate, SCIC
shared—public institutions absorb financial risk

Le Hasard Ludique demonstrates how a modest piece
of infrastructure can be recast as civic culture.
Installed within the former Gare Saint-Ouen station,
the project by Encore Heureux Architectes transforms
a disused rail building into a multi-use venue that
folds a concert hall, bar–restaurant, studios, and
workshops into its preserved masonry shell.
The project mixes adaptive reuse, selective new
construction, and flexible programming. Contemporary
uses are layered onto the station’s historic fabric,
allowing performances, dining, exhibitions, and
community activities to occupy the same spatial
frame. This programmability shifts with neighborhood
interests, ensuring the venue stays porous and
relevant.
Sustainability underpins the design strategy. The
architects retained the existing envelope, upcycled
materials wherever possible, and relied on modular,
energy-efficient interventions. The result is a lowcarbon
cultural infrastructure that celebrates,
rather than erases, its industrial heritage.
Community engagement is equally central. Le Hasard
Ludique operates through a blend of professional
management and volunteer participation, with
residents co-designing workshops, events, and
even aspects of the venue’s evolution. This shared
authorship generates a sense of collective ownership
and keeps the building embedded in local cultural
life.
Economically, the project is sustained through
a hybrid funding model: municipal support from
initiatives like “Réinventer la Gare,” local
partnerships, private investment, and selfgenerated
revenue from ticketing and hospitality—all
complemented by solidarity programs that reinvest
in neighborhood arts.
The result is an accessible, lively public interior
that reactivates dormant infrastructure, nurtures
creative expression, and strengthens community
ties. Le Hasard Ludique offers a replicable model
for cities seeking to balance heritage preservation
with evolving cultural needs—demonstrating how
adaptive, community-led reuse can animate urban
identity and stimulate local economies.
30% 5 4 3
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

07. Musée National de
l’Histoire de
l’Immigration
LOCATION:
Palais de la Porte Dorée, 293 Av. Daumesnil,12eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2007
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
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CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
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GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Patrick Bouchain
172,220 sf
critical heritage adaptation
preservation-as-confrontation
monumental colonial form, contemporary agonistic insert
extended, iterative process
10 years, conception to a fully realized institution
flexibility is discursive, not spatial
symbolically charges, light reversible - juxtaposed
construction as critique, craft-based, vernacular
low carbon, intentional avoidance of new construction
architecture, expertise, state authority, public discourse
craft, architectural stewardship, curatorial scholar
ship, scenographic production
civic, interpretive, scholarly, curatorial
platform for contested histories
$2M (2005), $2.5 (2020-23), publically funded
centralized, state-driven—an EPA, Ministry of Culture
state funded core, $1.5M annual shortfall
cultural policy, heritage protection, immigration politics
Ministry of Culture

The Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration
stages France’s immigration history inside one of
the nation’s most charged architectural artifacts:
the 1931 Palais de la Porte Dorée, built for the
Paris Colonial Exhibition. Its very setting forces
a confrontation between a building conceived to
glorify empire and a contemporary mission to
narrate the movement, displacement, and cultural
contributions of those once marginalized by that
same imperial project.
The museum emerged in 2003, driven by historians
and sociologists who argued that France needed a
public institution capable of acknowledging the
complexities and contradictions of its immigration
story. Patrick Bouchain was appointed in 2005
to restore the building’s exterior. Rather than
neutralize its colonial rhetoric, the project
retained the limestone bas-reliefs and monumental
façade, insisting that the architecture’s troubling
past remain visible, even if uneasy. For Bouchain,
preservation became a critical tool: repair the
envelope, but refuse to erase the ideology embedded
within it.
The result is a form of adaptive reuse that deliberately
stages tension. The permanent exhibition inserts
new narratives into a structure calibrated for a
very different worldview, generating a productive
discord between architectural inheritance and
contemporary programming. It is repair not through
harmonization, but through friction—an attempt
to let the building’s colonial past and France’s
evolving understanding of immigration occupy the
same spatial frame.
The project also prompts harder questions. In a
moment when national identity is a political fault
line, what role does the museum play? Does it foster
cultural cohesion, perform a subtle paternalism, or
simply house a contemporary narrative within an
unchanged symbolic apparatus? The museum’s power
lies in precisely this ambiguity: it exposes the
nation’s architectural and ideological inheritance
while asking how, and for whom, cultural repair is
performed.
5% 1 3 4
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

08. Musée de la
Chasse et de la
Nature
LOCATION:
62 Rue des Archives, 3eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 1967
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Fondation François-Sommer, François Hutin
7,000 sf
adaptive reuse of aristocratic domestic architecture
hybridization of old and new
scenographic immersive chambers, juxtaposition
initial conversion to strategic expansion, to continuous,
reversible scenographic updates
continuous, repair as a long-term cultural practice
flexibility is curatorial, atmospheric, narrative
wood, plaster, iron, glass, digital light, specimens
conservation craft, reversible scenographic insertion
low impact, selective repair
private foundation, architects, artisans, curators,
technicians, artists
skilled craft workers
interpretive, cultural, curatorial
transforming environmental imagination
$7.8M renovations, fondation
privately led and publicly recognized foundation
endowment returns, targeted capital investment, earned
revenue
Monument Historique, Musée de France designations
Foundation François-Sommer

The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature occupies a
distinctive position within Paris’s cultural landscape:
a privately funded museum of hunting and
nature in the Marais that stages a dialogue between
tradition and contemporary imagination. Its immersive
scenography interlaces taxidermy, modern art,
and historical artifacts, turning nature into something
not only preserved but performed.
Its architectural core is the 17th-century Hôtel de
Guénégaud, designed by François Mansart and converted
into a museum in 1967 under André Malraux. A
2007 expansion into the adjacent 18th-century Hôtel
de Mongelas, led by architect François Hutin,
treats adaptive reuse as cultural repair. Much of
the original fabric—woodwork, plaster, ironwork—
remains unaltered, yet the salons have become multisensory
chambers where contemporary installations
infiltrate, layer onto, and quietly animate
the inherited architecture. Mechanical systems recede
behind crafted surfaces; new display devices
hover within rooms calibrated for another century.
The approach is insertion, not overhaul.
Phasing kept the museum active while allowing repair
to function as an iterative process. Each room
is conceived as a discrete “episode,” able to host
future installations without sacrificing the building’s
historic integrity. Reversibility and temporal
openness guide the project, reducing ecological
impact through selective restoration rather than
comprehensive replacement.
Funded and governed by the Fondation François Sommer,
the museum operates as a private, non-profit
institution embedded within a broader public cultural
ecosystem. Its form of repair is both material
and symbolic: reusing historic architecture
while recasting the relationship between culture
and nature. Here, preservation becomes an act of
reinvention—treating heritage not as a static object
but as a catalyst for creativity, education,
and ecological imagination.
50% 1 4 3
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

09. Super-Équipement
Pinard
LOCATION:
ZAC Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, 14eme
YEAR COMPLETED: In Progress - projected opening 2027
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City of Paris, P&Ma, 14th Paris, Chartier Dalix
66,050 sf
social-infrastructure, circular-economy framework
selective, circular, socially co-produced adaptive
reuse
preserving existing frame, inserting hybrid public programs,
creating a continuous interior commons
preservation, material harvesting, co-design
8 years early studies to completion
emporal, spatial, operational
reused, bio-based, low-carbon
selective deconstruction, on-site reuse, craft-led re
assembly, reversible detailing
8% embodied carbon savings, 93% reused material,
circular-material workflow, district-scale metabolic integration,
low-tech, reversible construction
City, State, community, professions
building crafts, ecological engineering
procedural, programmatic, ongoing
merging ecological repair with social infrastructure
Paris Climate Plan, ZAC Clichy–Batignolles eco-district
City of Paris, coordinated municipal architecture office
public investment, circular construction, solidarity
climate policy, circular-economy, eco-district planning
City of Paris

The Équipement Pinard repurposes the former Adolphe
Pinard maternity ward into a multi-use public
facility. Designed by Chartier-Dalix with the City
of Paris and local representatives, the project—
set to open in 2027—will bring together a school,
daycare, gymnasium, community center, and business
incubator. The ambition is straightforward: to rebuild
neighborhood social infrastructure through
proximity and shared civic space.
About 60 percent of the existing building is preserved.
Of the material removed, 120 tons were
salvaged; 75 percent was reused on-site and the
rest sourced into other projects, aligning with the
ZAC’s circular-economy mandate. The building also
plugs into a district-wide urine recovery system
that transforms waste into fertilizer. Yet despite
this high-tech ecological network, the construction
approach remains grounded—local craft, selective
dismantling, and the reassembly of materials
take precedence over technological spectacle.
Commissioned and funded by the City of Paris, the
project advances a broader municipal commitment
to rehabilitating obsolete public buildings rather
than demolishing them. Architects, engineers, reuse
specialists, and craftspeople worked through an
institutional co-design process shaped by community
workshops and local leadership. More than 17,000
hours have gone into this participatory framework,
which acknowledges the building’s embodied memory
as a maternity ward while recasting it for contemporary
needs.
The project demonstrates how circular economy and
social infrastructure intersect. It delivers an estimated
8 percent reduction in embodied carbon and
a program that adapts across the day: a school and
daycare in use during working hours, a community
resource after hours. This flexibility supports intergenerational
encounters, shared amenities, and
an everyday civic life rooted in a preserved urban
fabric. The Équipement Pinard offers a model of sustainable
urban renewal—transforming a single-purpose
institutional relic into a dense, pluralistic
hub of material reuse and social connection.
93% 3 4 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

10. Envie - Le Labo
LOCATION:
10 Rue Julien Lacroix, 20eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2021
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Urban Act,Envie network,City of Paris, the Île-de-
France region, Paris Habitat?
1840 sf
circular-economy micro-hub
adaptive-reuse intervention
insertion on a former auto inspection site, compact,
modular, highly visible community exchange along a public
spine
site preparation, modular construction, ongoing program
12–18 months from design to activation
highly flexible, operationally open
60–70% reused materials, upcycled components
low-tech, craft, demountable elements, green roof
material reuse, daily repair of goods
Envie, Paris Habitat, residents, associations
construction crafts, specialists, technicians, trainees
hands-on, continuous, multi-level
repair as civic practice, skill-sharing
$872,000, Paris, ecosystem, ADEME, 20eme arrondissement
operationally managed by Envie social-enterprise network
public investment, social-enterprise, reintegration
Paris’s climate policies, social-enterprise
Envie network, French reintegration network

Envie Le Labo is a compact but potent example of
circular urban infrastructure. Designed by Urban
Act, the project transforms a former car testing
ground into a civic hub for repair, reuse, and
everyday sustainability—demonstrating how adaptive
reuse can operate at the scale of a neighborhood
while keeping environmental impact to a minimum.
The building practices what it preaches. Its
architecture is assembled from recovered components:
scaffolding turned into shelving, salvaged washingmachine
parts repurposed as design elements,
and modular rooms built from low-impact, easily
disassembled materials. A green roof, simple
finishes, and a deliberate economy of means support
the core ambition: 60–70% of construction materials
were reused or recycled, making the building itself
a live prototype for circular construction.
Its mission rests on three intertwined commitments:
reducing waste through repair, expanding social
equity through accessible services and employment,
and cultivating community resilience through
training and shared skills. Rather than projecting a
utopian future, Envie Le Labo works through pragmatic
action—make things last. Households gain access
to affordable, refurbished appliances; residents
learn repair techniques that reduce consumption;
and individuals enter a dignified labor pathway
through the wider Envie network, a federation of 53
social enterprises operating on more than 100 sites
across France.
The returns are striking. Public investment is
modest, yet the economic benefits for households—
through reduced appliance costs and free training—
far outweigh initial expenditures. Social returns
are equally measurable: hundreds trained each year,
dozens employed, and a local skills ecosystem
strengthened. The modular architecture ensures
long-term adaptability, allowing programs to evolve
as needs shift.
Most importantly, Envie Le Labo has become an
urban marker, a visible, approachable space
where sustainability is not an abstraction but
a daily practice. It shows how circular-economy
principles can be rooted in place, producing not
only environmental gains but also civic agency and
neighborhood-scale economic vitality.
10% 4 4 3
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

11. Poinçon - Petite
Ceinture
LOCATION:
124, 126 avenue du Général-Leclerc, 14eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2019
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City of Paris/14th; Cultplace; heritage design teams
1,315 sf, 0.28 acres
hybrid cultural venue, anchor Petite Ceinture
subtractive restoration, selective insertion(restaurant,
bar, stage, exhibits)
contrast and continuity— connecting to urban wild
clearing, stabilizaation, insertion, activation
~2 years design to construction, activation ongoing
flexible through use, not form
restored brick, stone, timber, light, steel, wood
subtractive, reparative, reversible, vernacular
low impact, minimal new material use, biodiversity
Paris, railway authorities, architects, craftspeople
craft, light construction, eco-maintenance, hospitality
consultative, co-design, self-build, residents, artists
connecting curated culture with urban ecology
public landlord, municipal backing, private cultural
operator for fit-out
City of Paris, Paris Habitat, Cultplace
Paris finances heritage envelope, Cultplace operations
heritage, incentives, delegate programming
Federation Envie, City of Paris, Region de l’Ile de
France, and Cultplace

Poinçon offers a refined model of heritage repair—
one that privileges continuity and adaptive use
over architectural bravado. Set along the Petite
Ceinture, the 19th-century rail loop that once
circled Paris and now forms part of the city’s
emerging green corridor, the project stitches a
fragment of industrial infrastructure back into
contemporary urban life through careful restoration
and calibrated programmatic insertion.
The Petite Ceinture, built between 1852 and 1869 and
closed to passenger service in 1934, has been slowly
reabsorbed into the city since the 1990s. Sections
have reopened as pedestrian paths and biodiversity
corridors, fostering an unusual coexistence of
urban nature and informal culture. Poinçon sits
precisely at this hinge. Behind its polished dining
room, the wild, graffiti-layered railway cutting
creates a startling contrast: restored masonry
foregrounding unruly vegetation, street art, and
crumbling platforms. It is a landscape of layered
time, where the city’s post-industrial transition
remains visible and unresolved.
The renovation strategy is intentionally subtractive.
Later, low-quality accretions were removed; original
brick and stone were restored; and new elements—an
elegant restaurant-bar, a small performance stage,
and flexible exhibition spaces—were inserted with
restraint. Operated by Cultplace, Poinçon measures
success through cultural continuity rather than
preservation still-lives. Concerts, exhibitions,
and weekend brunches animate the terrace, while
visitors move fluidly between curated interiors and
the graffiti alley and green corridor beyond.
Governance operates as a hybrid: public interest
aligns with private cultural programming,
distributing financial risk while sustaining a
high-quality agenda. Material intensity is low—
repair rather than reconstruction—yet the social
and cultural value is high. By reconnecting the
former rail ring to contemporary cultural circuits
while preserving its liminal, ecological character,
Poinçon shows that heritage continuity and urban
biodiversity can coexist. The result is a nuanced
model of adaptive reuse within a post-industrial
landscape—neither museum nor theme park, but a
living hinge between past and present.
40% 3 3 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

12. Médiathèque
James Baldwin
LOCATION:
10 bis Rue Henri Ribière, 19eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2024
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Mutabilis, Igrec Ingéniérie, AAB, Philippe Madec (apm)
64,580 sf
hybrid civic facility grounded in social and ecological
repair
selective deconstruction, reuse of existing concrete
bioclimatic timber-and–rammed-earth connector
open concrete blocks,naturally ventilated timber loggia
deconstruction, material harvesting, restoration, land
3 years design to completion, long-term transformation
moderate, flexible in use, fixed in structure
existing concrete, timber, wood wool, rammed earth
reclamation, light timber assembly, bioclimatic
renaturing, low-tech environmental intelligence
architects, municipal authorities, reuse specialists,
craftspeople, social-service organization
skilled craft labor, low-tech construction labor
programming, social services, ecological engagement
restoring civic dignity on contested site, modeling
ecological responsibility as a shared urban practice
$23.1M, City of Paris (~80$), Ministry of Culture,environmental
grants, social programming
hybrid, city, library system, Emmaüs Solidarité + Singa
material sobriety, long-term public investment
Parisian ecological, cultural, and social policies
absorbed by public sector

The Médiathèque James Baldwin, recently completed
by the architect Philippe Madec, positions itself as
both an ecological manifesto and a tentative act of
civic repair. Set near Place des Fêtes, the project
reworks the former Lycée Jean Quarré—a 1970s school
that, in 2015, became an improvised shelter for
nearly 1,000 displaced migrants. When the City of
Paris cleared the occupation, only a fraction of the
residents were rehoused. The site was left carrying
the weight of displacement, political conflict, and
the ambiguities of humanitarian response. Any new
project would necessarily inherit this history.
Madec approached the commission through what he
terms “architectural sobriety.” Rather than enact a
tabula rasa, the design mines the existing building
as a resource. Floor slabs become forecourt paving;
crushed concrete becomes landscape substrate;
salvaged fixtures circulate through reuse networks.
Two concrete blocks are reopened to air and light,
while a new connective volume—built in timber,
insulated with wood wool, and clad with rammed
earth made from Grand Paris Express excavations—
acts as a bioclimatic hinge. Unheated and naturally
ventilated, this wooden loggia filters daylight and
announces a new civic entrance from the square.
The landscape extends the project’s ecological
ethos: 4,000 square meters of green roofs and public
gardens halve impermeable surfaces and cultivate
urban biodiversity. Comfort is achieved through
low-tech means including passive ventilation,
thermal mass, and district heating, underscoring the
project’s commitment to environmental restraint.
But the question of repair is not limited to carbon
savings or circular material flows. The Maison des
Réfugiés, operated by Emmaüs Solidarité and Singa,
maintains a program of welcome through language
courses, coworking, and vocational training.
Still, the shift from an emergency encampment to an
institutionalized center for “integration” raises
unresolved questions about agency, visibility,
and the politics of care. Does an architecture
of frugality meaningfully address the displacement
that preceded it, or does it risk a form of “green
reconciliation”—material virtue standing in for
social redress?
The Médiathèque James Baldwin holds this tension.
It offers a new civic commons grounded in ecological
responsibility, even as its social legacy remains
unsettled.
53% 5 4 2
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

13. Academie Du
Climat
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2 Pl. Baudoyer, 4eme
2021-ongoing
Encore Heureux Architects, volunteers, residents
41,980 sf
hybrid civic climate hub
transformative adaptive reuse of former town hall into
experimental climate infrastructures
diversification of use within an existing civic shell
multi-stage rollout, temporary scenographies
2–3 years to deliver, with continuous adaptation
maximum programmability within a fixed civic shell
existing masonry, timber additions, recycled, low-tech
selective refurbishment, reversible interior insertions
high ecological impact, behavioral, material, pedagogical
transformation
City of Paris, Encore Heureux, climate NGOs, the public
municipal, construction, ecological craft, educational
continuous, informal, intergenerational, co-creative
everyday participation
building a culture of climate citizenship
$2.2M capital improvements, $1.1M annual operating
costs, municipally funded
municipal, with associative programmatic co-governance
publicly funded non-monetary, structural impact
Paris Climate Action Plan, Ecological Resilience Transition
agenda, youth engagement and eductational policy
Shared between city and community actors

The Académie du Climat in Paris is, at once, a
school, a workshop, a café, and a cultural platform—
but none of these descriptors quite captures its
ambition. Housed in the former town hall of the
4th arrondissement, it stages one of the city’s
most compelling experiments in what civic space can
become in an era defined by climate crisis. It is
not a sustainability museum or a closed research
institute. It is intentionally porous, unpolished,
and insistently convivial.
Workshops on eco-construction bleed into debates
on climate justice; a sewing circle holds the
same legitimacy as an academic seminar. A library
shares a floorplate with a bar. Rather than sorting
knowledge into hierarchies, the Académie assembles
practices—technical, social, and everyday—into a
single ecosystem. It effectively dissolves the
familiar divisions between learning and leisure,
research and daily life.
Its most consequential innovation, however,
is methodological. The building serves as a
living laboratory: greening experiments, cooling
prototypes, and adaptive infrastructures are
tested in situ, monitored, and kept visible. The
institution places its own architecture under
scrutiny, making iteration and uncertainty central
to its pedagogical model.
This redefines what a public building can do. Paris
has a long tradition of monumental cultural projects
that position citizens as spectators. The Académie
reverses that script. Here, citizens are actors—
co-authors in the city’s ecological transition. It
asks Parisians to understand climate action not as
a distant policy but as a set of practices unfolding
in their hands, on their streets, and within their
neighborhoods.
In doing so, the Académie du Climat advances a claim
that is both modest and radical: climate transition
belongs not only to experts and policymakers, but
to anyone who walks through its doors.
15% 5 4 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

14. La Grande CoCo
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29 Rue de Soleil, 20eme
2017 - present
Clicks and layers, Switch, AETC, Christopher Piere,
Pepins Production
11,890 sf
cooperative mixed-use adaptive reuse
incremental adaptive reuse
densification of existing factory frame with small,
interlocking volumes, semi-public interiors
incremental, driven by capacity, resources, use
5+ years so far, with no fixed end point
adaptability low, small, opaque cooperative circle
bio-sourced, recycled, low-tech components
low-tech, handcrafted, up-cycling, vernacular
low-carbon project, strong reuse practices, contained
cooperative-led but tightly held ecosystem
small-scale, craft-driven, cooperative, volunteer, low-tech
partial, mostly internal to cooperative members
self-organized, cooperative micro-infrastructure
$2.64M, SCI 3.2.1 Soleil, public subsidies Grand Paris
informal, insular collective
cooperative, anti-speculative, slow-growth
public–cooperative policy ecosystem, IMGP competition
rules, long-term public land leasing, circular-economy
mandates, cooperative ownership law
small cooperative core (fragile system)

La Grande Coco is a cooperative, mixed-use complex
that positions architecture as a collective project
rather than a singular authorship. Housed within a
1930s flower-embroidery factory, it blends housing,
workspaces, cultural production, and shared public
programs into a single incremental act of urban
repair. Developed through the Inventons la Métropole
du Grand Paris competition, it is directed by the
cooperative SCI 3.2.1 Soleil, which—unusually—acts
as both client and designer. The core team—Clicks &
Layers (architecture), Switch (environment), AETC
(engineering), Christopher Piere (landscape), and
local partners such as Pépins Production—works in
and from the site, embedding daily practice into
the building’s evolution.
The project grows through accretion rather than
overhaul. Timber structures are grafted onto
the existing factory frame; small volumes infill
courtyards and gardens; recycled and bio-based
materials—straw, clay, timber, reclaimed trusses,
marble tile offcuts—are assembled through lowtech,
craft-based methods. This hybrid approach
resists typological classification. La Grande Coco
is neither a housing project nor a commercial
complex nor a cultural center—it is all three,
interlaced. Workspaces, cooperative housing units,
a café, a greenhouse, and a rooftop terrace anchor
the building as a “third space” that mixes domestic,
productive, and communal life.
This construction ethos doubles as a climate
strategy. By prioritizing reuse and passive systems,
the project cuts operational energy by nearly half
while cultivating local networks of circular labor
and supply. Economically, it resists speculative
development: a 45-year land lease ensures stability,
while financing is stitched together through public
support, cooperative investment, and solidaritybased
ownership models that distribute risk across
users and members.
Still, the project faces challenges. Open to the
public since 2019—first through an art exhibition,
later through its café—La Grande Coco remains
somewhat inward-facing. Despite its adjacency to
a park and a school, its community interface is
underdeveloped; most engagement happens inside its
own ecosystem. Its future relevance hinges on whether
its cooperative ethos can expand beyond its walls
and anchor itself more fully in the neighborhood it
aims to serve.
53% 2 2 1
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

15. Palais de Tokyo
LOCATION:
13 Avenue du Presidente Wilson, 16eme
YEAR COMPLETED: renovated 2001 & 2012, built 1937
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Jean-Claude Dondel, Andre Aubert, Paul Viard, Marcel
Dastuge / Anne Lacaton & Jean - Philippe Vassal
236,810 sf
pragmatic, economic stabilization, non-restorative
restraint, revelation, reuse, code
coming-undone-ness, never complete
multi-phase, open-ended renovation, prioritized continuous
use
transformed in 2 phases, designed to be continuous
extremely flexible, open, raw, design for appropriation
exposed structure, the building as material
selective, non-invasive construction, only where needed
ecology through refusal
collective, distributed, ongoing
minimal construction, building trades, operational
culturally embedded artists, curators, technicians
incubating experimental art to modeling ecological responsibility,
convening civic dialogue, symbolic
$3M (phase 1), $14M (phase 2), French Cultural Ministry
Établissement Public à caractère Industriel et Commercial
public investment, flexible cultural production, operational
entrepreneurship
national cultural mandates, sustainability legislation
disbursed across public, cultural ecosystem

The Palais de Tokyo has always been more laboratory
than landmark. Built in 1937 and requisitioned soon
after as a wartime depot, the building has weathered
a rotating cast of social, cultural, and material
conditions. What persists is not a fixed identity but
a recurring lesson: architecture’s relevance often
lies in its ability to adapt. Today, the Palais
stands as a working argument for radical reuse
and environmental intelligence, an insistence that
resisting demolition is itself a form of design.
Lacaton & Vassal’s renovation sharpened this
argument. Their intervention begins with a refusal:
no replacement, only reactivation. By keeping the
original concrete frame, revealing its structural
skeleton, and adding only minimal reinforcement,
they preserved the building’s embodied energy
while reframing conservation as a forward-looking
project. The result is a space that holds history
without becoming beholden to it.
The building’s exposed concrete, peeling paint, and
stitched-together surfaces articulate an aesthetic
that is neither romantic ruin nor industrial chic.
Instead, they model an ethic of incompleteness—an
acknowledgment that materials age, degrade, and can
be transformed. This rawness becomes both metaphor
and method for sustainability: upcycling as design
intelligence, material recovery as cultural stance.
Inside, the galleries extend this ethos. Largescale
installations, experimental performances,
and socially attuned exhibitions weave together
questions of ecological collapse, climate
responsibility, and collective action. As a piece
of cultural infrastructure, the Palais de Tokyo
operates across scales—from nurturing a local
creative economy to convening global conversations
about sustainability and the future of public space.
Its resilience lies in its capacity to absorb new
programs, publics, and meanings. The building
models an architectural and urban vision grounded
in justice, repair, and transformation. It
suggests that—as in ecology—architecture thrives
through reuse, openness, and continuity. In its
intentionally unfinished state, the Palais de Tokyo
becomes an active site of experimentation, projecting
sustainable futures through art, material practice,
and the architectural imagination.
20% 2 5 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

16. Tour Bois-le-Prêtre
LOCATION:
6 rue Pierre-Rebière, 17eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2011
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Lacaton & Vassal, Druot (architects), Paris OPH
134,120 sf
deep retrofit of an existing social-housing tower
through transformative expansion rather than demolition
subtraction (removing the obsolete façade) with addi
tion (new volumes and climate buffers)
generous, outward-expanding,additive gardens, balconies
staged and incremental; tower remained occupied
3 years total (~1 year design + 2 years construction)
residential adaptability within units
light, additive, transparent, and economical
surgical, exoskeletal construction method
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT: high benefit, energy consumption cut by over 50%
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
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Paris Habitat, Lacaton & Vassal, Frédéric Druot, engineers,
residents
technical, manual, social, administrative
high, continuous, and structurally embedded
restored dignity of inhabitants; countered stigma
$12.7M, ~half the cost of demolition/reconstruction
Paris Habitat
redistributive, non-speculative, rent-controlled
Grenelle-driven environmental retrofit, implemented GPRU
renewal priorities, PLU zoning flexibility.
away from tenants, toward public authorities, designer

The Tour Bois-le-Prêtre renovation set a new benchmark
for what social housing repair can accomplish. By
proving that transformation is both cheaper and
more sustainable than demolition, it offered a
direct policy alternative to the tabula rasa logic
that shaped postwar renewal. At roughly €100,000–
€150,000 per unit, the project cost significantly
less than new construction, yet delivered gains
far beyond economics: energy use was cut in half
through passive strategies and envelope upgrades,
demonstrating that environmental performance and
social continuity are not competing goals.
Non-displacement was central to the project’s ethos.
Residents remained in place throughout construction,
preserving community networks and avoiding the
trauma so often produced by redevelopment. The
renovation expanded living space by nearly 3,000
square meters—through winter gardens, balconies, and
enlarged windows—without triggering rent increases.
Because these additions were classified as nontaxable
buffer zones, the architects could provide
more space, light, and dignity without financial
penalty. The argument was explicit: generosity of
space is not a luxury but a civic right, especially
for social-housing tenants.
The project challenged the narrative that demolition
equals progress. Lacaton & Vassal reframed repair
as an architectural and social proposition: keep
the structure, radically improve it, and reinvest
in the lives already rooted there. The new winter
gardens and transparent facades acted as instruments
of care, materially expressing the belief that
existing residents deserve the city’s best.
Temporally, the building is now more adaptive. The
added buffer zones allow seasonal modulation, while
the reinforced structure and clarified circulation
make future adjustments possible without disruption.
The renovation has since influenced housing policy,
academic discourse, and municipal practice,
becoming a reference point for resilient, lowcarbon,
socially grounded urban repair.
Even the landscape—expanded green areas, cooperative
garden plots, play spaces—extends this ethic
outward, reaffirming that environmental and social
repair are inseparable.
16% 5 5 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

17. EcoQuartier Saint-
Vincent-de-Paul
LOCATION:
82 Av. Denfert Rochereau, 14 eme
YEAR COMPLETED: Expected 2026
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE:
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING:
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
FUNDING:
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
Ville de Paris, P&Ma (developer)
366,000 sf, 8.4 acres
infill and adaptive reuse driven urban repair
high-density, preservation-plus-infill
central pedestrian landscaped, grafts new, resource-so
ber structures onto a largely preserved fabric
historic stabilization, incremental permanent develop
ment, shared public space throughout
~10 year, long-horizon repair, incremental repair
adaptable integration of housing and public facilities
reuse strategy; bio-based components, timber
lightweight, dry-assembled infill systems grafted
“zéro carbone, zéro déchet, zéro rejet.”
public agencies, social-housing, architects, residents
building trades, 5,000 volunteers; neighborhood manager
structured participation through maîtrise d’usage
cultural activation site’s legacy of care, hospitality
~$160–$275M public investment in long-horizon, low-car
bon repair
shared governance linking city, housing agencies, developers,
resident user groups
mission-driven development, social, solidarity economy
preservation mandates, BRS affordability tools,
eco-quarter environmental standards “zéro carbone”
public sector absorbs long-term land risk

The ÉcoQuartier Saint-Vincent-de-Paul advances a
measurable agenda across environmental repair, social
equity, and economic vitality. As an “Éco-
Quartier en chantier – étape 2,” it anchors its
ambition—zero carbon, zero waste, zero rejection—
in concrete metrics: 60% of historic buildings retained,
a robust material-reuse strategy, and a
district energy system in which wastewater heat
covers 60% of thermal needs. Even the selective
urine-recovery loop, now an award-winning experiment,
folds ecological innovation into daily life.
Socially, the project tackles affordability headon:
50% social housing, emergency shelters, and
the Bail Réel Solidaire mechanism that halves sale
prices and curbs speculation to preserve long-term
mixity. Economically, roughly 91,500 square feet
are dedicated to the Social and Solidarity Economy,
crafts, and creative production—often nested within
the preserved courtyards.
Its ethos is pragmatic and solidaristic, informed
by the Grands Voisins occupation (2015–2020), which
acted as a full-scale prefiguration of common-goods
governance. The site’s historic vocation of hospitality
is extended, not erased.
The project works with density as a tool, pairing
a 60% preservation rate with resource-sober
new construction across its 8.4-acre footprint.
A 43,000-square-foot landscaped pedestrian spine
anchors its environmental strategy, maximizing
permeability and biodiversity. Community agency
is unusually high: a formalized maîtrise d’usage
structure allowed future residents to co-design
buildings and shared spaces. Temporal adaptability
is built in through flexible programs and shared
public amenities—school, crèche, gym—designed to
operate beyond standard hours.
66% 5 5 4
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

18. La Maison des
Canaux
LOCATION:
6 Quai de la Seine, 19eme
YEAR COMPLETED: 2022
TEAM:
SCALE:
FORM/TYPE
INTERVENTION:
SPATIAL STRATEGY:
PHASING
DURATION:
FLEXIBILITY/ADAPTATION:
MATERIALS:
CONSTRUCTION METHOD:
ECOLOGICAL IMPACT:
AGENTS OF REPAIR:
LABOR:
PARTICIPATION:
CULTURAL WORK:
Grand Huit, Yes We Camp, Une Autre Ville
10,760 sf
circular-economy retrofit
hyper-local harvest-and-reuse adaptation
heterogenous, craft-built demonstration rooms
temporary occupation, diagnostics, prototyping, deconstruction,
reconstruction, civic activation
8-year staged construction, programming, pilots
highly flexible rooms, open to new uses, partners
up-cycled demolition materials from 30 km radius
artisanal craft, job reintegration, public workshops
low embodied carbon, low operational energy
City of Paris, ADEME (environmental agency), NGOs,
social cooperatives
hybrid, professional contractors, trainees
co-design & hands-on public participation workshops
transforms waste into a pedagogical, symbolic act
FUNDING: ~$830K for phase 1, ~$1.76M for phase 2
GOVERNANCE:
ECONOMIC STRATEGY:
POLICY FRAMEWORK:
RISK DISTRIBUTION:
city-led, multi-partner Paris, NGOs, artisans
circular-economy, social-enterprise partnerships, publicly
funded reinvestment
municipal reuse incentives and adaptive zoning
City of Paris, architects, artisans, NGOs

The Maison des Canaux is a building that insists
on being read twice: once as architecture, and
again as pedagogy. On the surface, it is a handsome
19th-century structure along the Bassin de la Villette,
once the bureaucratic home of Paris’s canal
services. But its most compelling feature is not
its history. It is the way that history has been
overwritten by an ethic of reuse and solidarity.
Step inside and the building narrates itself: cushions
sewn from hot-air balloon fabric, chandeliers
of shredded paper pulp, chairs reassembled from
hospital beds. Nothing is incidental. Every detail
is a didactic prompt about the circular economy.
Where most civic renovations hide the economies of
construction, erasing the scars of prior use, the
Maison amplifies them, turning salvage into ornament.
Architecture becomes argument, material becomes
manifesto.
This strategy is compelling because it displaces
the abstract rhetoric of sustainability into the
immediacy of touch, sight, and use. It also risks,
however, slipping into scenography. When reuse becomes
aestheticized, does the building become less
a laboratory and more a showroom for virtue? The
Maison hovers on that line.
Its real strength lies in coupling this material
pedagogy with institutional programming. It is not
a static exhibition but a hub: hosting incubators,
training sessions, and civic collaborations that
extend far beyond its walls. In that sense, it performs
an inversion of the typical cultural building:
not a monument to consumption, but a node in
a network of redistribution.
But the very practices that make it compelling are
also its limitations. Disassembling and remaking
objects with such care is slow, painstaking, and
difficult to scale. What emerges is less a model for
mass replication than a deeply human, empathetic
gesture: a reminder that repair, however small, can
carry emotional weight. The Maison does not promise
efficiency. It offers presence.
5% 4 5 5
green:built
community
agency
adaptability
cost/benefit

Le CENTQUATRE, interior and courtyard

Le CENTQUATRE, entrance

Academie du Spectacle Équestre, Lusitano, iconic “white horse of Versailles”

Academie du Spectacle Équestre, horses marching in Equestrian show

Academie du Spectacle Équestre, courtyard

EDEN BIO, alley

EDEN BIO, facade

LA COMMUNALE, entrance and interior

LA COMMUNALE, food court

LA FERME DU RAIL, view of the gardens, restaurant, Petite Ceinture

LA FERME DU RAIL, detail bioclimatic greenhouse

LA FERME DU RAIL, detail facade and garden

LA FERME DU RAIL, agriculture activities, communications photo

LA FERME DU RAIL, interior of the restaurant, communications photo

ÉQUIPEMENT PINARD, architectural classroom rendering

ÉQUIPEMENT PINARD, architectural rendered aerial

ÉQUIPEMENT PINARD, communications photos

ÉQUIPEMENT PINARD, communications photos

LE HASARD LUDIQUE, community gathering block party

LE HASARD LUDIQUE, outdoor historic railway

LE HASARD LUDIQUE, indoor upper floor

LE HASARD LUDIQUE, outdoor bar, communications photo

LE HASARD LUDIQUE, indoor restaurant, communications photo

MUSÉE NATIONAL DE L’HISTOIRE DE L’IMMIGRATION, exterior facade

MUSÉE NATIONAL DE L’HISTOIRE DE L’IMMIGRATION, museum exhibits

MUSÉE NATIONAL DE L’HISTOIRE DE L’IMMIGRATION, exterior facade reliefs

MUSÉE DE LA CHASSE ET DE LA NATURE, antler tree

MUSÉE DE LA CHASSE ET DE LA NATURE, trophy mounts

MUSÉE DE LA CHASSE ET DE LA NATURE, lounge

MUSÉE DE LA CHASSE ET DE LA NATURE, ceiling owl room

ENVIE LE LABO, repaired machines for sale

ENVIE LE LABO, main entrance

ENVIE LE LABO, workshop and wall made with washing machine portholes

ENVIE LE LABO, entrance hall

POINCON, terrace, Petite Ceinture

POINCON, main entrance

POINCON, small stage

POINCON, explanatory panel and kitchen

JAMES BALDWIN MEDIA CENTRE AND REFUGEE HOUSE, communications photo

JAMES BALDWIN MEDIA CENTRE AND REFUGEE HOUSE, interior communications photo

JAMES BALDWIN MEDIA CENTRE AND REFUGEE HOUSE, roof garden

PLACE DES FETES, reconstruction

PLACE DES FETES, Guide Routard

ACADEMIE DU CLIMAT, courtyard

ACADEMIE DU CLIMAT, courtyard

ACADEMIE DU CLIMAT, transition ecologique meeting, Ville de Paris

ACADEMIE DU CLIMAT, courtyard

LA GRANDE COCO, rooftop terrasse with green house

LA GRANDE COCO, interior courtyard

LA GRANDE COCO, rooftop terrace

LA GRANDE COCO, zinc dormer

LA GRANDE COCO, facade (above), greenhouse under construction (below)

ECOQUARTIER SAINT-VINCENT-DE-PAUL, Birdeye View Render Visualization, credit: P&Ma

PALAIS DE TOKYO, view of entrance colonnade

PALAIS DE TOKYO, skylight illuminating exhibition space (above) skake-pool (below)

PALAIS DE TOKYO, exhibition space under construction

PALAIS DE TOKYO, basement entrance to Club YoYo

TOUR BOIS-LE-PRÊTRE, transformation of facade and balcony

TOUR BOIS-LE-PRÊTRE, before transformation, credit: Philippe Ruault

TOUR BOIS-LE-PRÊTRE, balcony interior, credit: Frédéric Drout

TOUR BOIS-LE-PRÊTRE, living room connected with balcony, credit: Frédéric Drout

ECOQUARTIER SAINT-VINCENT-DE-PAUL, construction Oct. 8th 2025

ECOQUARTIER SAINT-VINCENT-DE-PAUL, Les Grands Voisins, credit: P&Ma

LA MAISON DES CANAUX, canal view

LA MAISON DES CANAUX, front patio detail

LA MAISON DES CANAUX, front patio (top), light fixtures (bottom)

LA MAISON DES CANAUX, front patio floor

LA MAISON DES CANAUX, interior floor

the workshop
This booklet grows out of an intensive workshop made
possible by a remarkable collaboration: students from the
Repair Manual Propositions Studio at the University of
Michigan’s Taubman College, led by Professor Anya Sirota,
working alongside students from the International Urban
Design Program at the Université Gustave Eiffel, guided by
Professors Jennifer Buyck and Pedro Gomez.
For a week in Paris, France, a territory largely uncharted
for all the student participants, the group worked across
disciplines, programs, and geographies to reexamine
urban and architectural projects that place repair, ecology,
solidarity, and planetary survival at the center of material and
social practice. There were many steps, many words lost and
found in translation, and a sustained effort to braid distinct
critical and cultural lenses into a shared conversation.
Gathered here is a snapshot of those impressions: collective
thinking that has shaped the Repair Manual proposition
studio and will likely continue to inform the work ahead.
Many thanks to the Universite Gustave Eiffel, l’Institut
d’études avancées de Paris (IEA), and the Taubman College
of Architecture and Urban Planning travel fund for making
this collaboration and research effort possible.

credits
1. Le Centquatre
Académie du Spectacle Équestre
2. Eden Bio
La Communale
3. La Ferme du Rail
Le Hazard Ludique
4. Musee de National de l’Immigration
Médiathèque James Baldwin
5. Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature
Equipment Pinard
6. Envie - Le Labo
Poincon - Petite Ceinture
7. Academie du Climat
La Maison des Canaux
8. La Grande CoCo
Palais de Tokyo
9. Tour Bois la Pretre
Eco-Quartier
Elyse Cote + Jordan Lindberg + Samuel Barreda
Riley Montgomery + Agata Kotewicz
Allison Yu + Alice Storti
Nayana Durga Naik + Aaron Johnson + Adam Bjerrum
Ashley Amey + Alma Nilsson
Kallista Sayer + Coralie Monnet
Stephanie Bednarski + Gustavo Reis
Jack Smith + Roman Marra + Maurits Vermeire
Sheila (Chun) Wang + Felipe Ratto

taubman college of architecture & urban planning
universite gustave eiffel