The city is a reflection of society, a community of our strengths and skills aimed at the survival of us as a people. But throughout history society has slowly been corrupted, leaving a trail of individualism. The selfishness of some has slowly destroyed the generosity of others.It is that sinister but realistic reflection that newcomers, tourists and migrants are facing when venturing into the city. Constantly harassed by noise, pollution, cars and exasperated passer-bys. This epic urban tale comes to a head in Tolbiac’s ghost neighborhood, symbol of this society’s absurdity: filled by day with conformist workers, like machines that are turned on in the morning and turned off at night. They sometimes commute for hours, cultivating their aggressiveness and bitterness. At night, this slice of the city is dead, wiped off the map.This project is a scaling of one’s relationship with the other, and of the link between work and daily life which will help us make sense of urban environments. A common land, the fruit of collective work feeding the community, the principles of a society on a human scale. The protagonists are in control of their daily life: no more dependency on transportation, also reducing their environmental footprint. This gives a real sense to their work and their relationship to one another. Like a team coming into full view of its goals, and stays united to achieve them.It is a little city within a city, organized in a schematic of independence yet not full self-sustenance. Giving to each and everyone what they came to find.
On the site of the current architecture school of Paris Val de Seine, this “kibbutz” is a welcome center for foreign students, who participate in the community’s chores as a means to pay rent. Fields tower over the city, revealing from their bowels a forest of inhabited pillars. A type of flat and serene canopy housing a dense and animated jungle. Only the existing buildings create a link between these two universes by rising above the fields, modifying the project’s scale. The underside of the NAPPE? Is the exact negative of its surface. This defines three distinct universes : the ground floor, a space for exchanging and meeting the public, with a covered market as well as sport equipment. Le underside houses spaces reserved to students for their work as well as community life. The atmosphere there is more intimate, but the sounds of the market can still be heard. The surface is dedicated to the fields and housing, which enjoy a rare serenity in the heart of a city.