Rooftop Addition in Paris
Five storeys in the backyard
Architecture: JAVA Architecture
Subscriber: private
Location: Paris (FR)
On the foundation walls of a decaying previous building, Java Architecture erected a five-story high-rise using wood techniques in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. An investor bought a house in ruins and wanted to turn it into his family home.
In the office, together with the investor, they embarked on an adventure that would last several years with the aim of helping a middle-class family stay in Paris.
The architects’ prediction came true: the road to completion was long and rocky, full of opposition from neighbours, interim refusal of construction consent and, of course, the client’s family’s limited budget. The area of the previous two-story building was only 4 x 6 m.
In order to be able to accommodate the family of four there, the architects built five storeys upwards. The lower three levels are home to bedrooms; the third upper level and the greenhouse-like attic storey serve the family as living space. The basement can be used as a hobby room and a space for guests. Apart from the basement and the dry-stone walls that surround the house on three sides of the ground floor, very little remains of the old structure. However, this “very little” was not able to bear heavy loads. Therefore, the architects decided in favour of a wooden construction.
The exterior walls include a thermal insulation system with grey plaster. Some feature windows of clear glass and folding shutters of wood, while in places there is a pellucid covering of multi-skin polycarbonate panels which allow a hazy view of life inside the home to shine through. Above all, it is in the stairway – which also functions as the backbone of the structure – that the wooden skeleton appears in all its glory as a design element.
