KOOZ What prompted the project?

AF | SK Our project is a response to a studio design prompt organized by Nicholas Gilliland and John Casbarian in the Rice University School of Architecture Paris program. The studio asked teams to investigate and propose a new master plan for CAP-18, an existing site of industry in Paris. This immediately inspired us to delve into the renewal of urban industrial areas and to question how to make industrial spaces more visible and accessible to the public.

The existing CAP-18 site, situated on the edge of the 18th arrondissement, is an opaque and closed-off center of light-industry that is also in the process of being redeveloped by the city of Paris. Currently, the site is composed of several concrete industrial buildings that are being used by a range of companies from coffee makers to artisans to job trainers. As part of the design process, we met with the urban planners on the project about their early-stage analysis of the site and proposed development opportunities. During these meetings, it became clear that the city’s initial proposal did not include plans to maintain any of the 10 existing concrete structures nor were there plans to maintain space for the existing companies using the site. This inspired us to look at the project differently, through a lens of sustainability that assumed reuse of the existing buildings for the occupants already there. After establishing this as our fundamental premise, we set ourselves the additional goal of exploring how to adapt these buildings to the right extent: to be functional enough for their anticipated needs, while unaltered and flexible enough to be easily adapted in the future.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

AF | SK Our project questions the relationship between industry and city, and what this relationship could look like in the future. Often, active industrial spaces are composed of opaque buildings that are unsightly and closed to the public. These industries are continuously being pushed to the outskirts of a city due to the rising demands and cost of land in urban areas.

As architects, can we find a better solution? How can we improve the quality of life for industrial workers in these environments? How can we negotiate this with industries that are continuing to expand and adapt as our cities grow and evolve? What could a new typology for contemporary, urban industries look like?And what new connections could such a typology foster in our cities of the future?

These are just a few of the questions that we try to address in the project. For example, through an exploration of lightweight, transparent, and operable facades, the designing of novel interior spaces to house up-and-coming handicraft industries which are on the rise, and the reactivation of the Petite Ceinture rail line to reconnect and intensify the link between production and the city. In this way, through the design of this project, we were able to investigate notions of sustainability, durability, flexibility and adaptability to support an ever-changing site.

KOOZ Rather than proposing new built structures, the design prioritizes the reuse of existing buildings and concrete structures. What informed this decision? What are its implications?

AF | SK The primary driver for this decision was certainly sustainability. With today’s pressing climate change concerns, it was vital for us to consider the project’s ecological impact. New construction is one of the largest contributors to carbon-emissions, and the demolition of existing buildings should always be reconsidered given the loss of pre-existing embodied energy. Given a site with functional structures, already designed to house the programs needed, it was clear to us that reuse was the right solution.

In addition, these existing buildings infuse the site with an indelible history and character that we did not want to erase. The complex has occupied the site for many years, operating as a center of industry for numerous workers. It felt disingenuous to completely demolish something that was working fairly effectively for the function that it was given. The skeletons of the existing buildings were structurally efficient, and reutilization of this framework laid the groundwork for the design.

This approach resulted in rich and unique spatial conditions given structural juxtapositions that would not otherwise have come about in new construction (see for example the transition between the new, wooden arched roofscape and the old concrete structure). To best utilize the existing structures, we devised a strategy of structural adjacencies and pocket interventions to retain as much of the existing buildings and concrete structures as possible, while also leaving room for further reinterpretations, re-adaptations, aging and growth of the site as materials weather, surroundings evolve, and programmatic needs change over time.

KOOZ From affordable housing to public amenities, reemerging industries, and rail infrastructures, what informed the programmatic distribution of CAP-18?

AF | SK The programmatic distribution was a response to the needs of the surrounding neighborhood, which we investigated and determined over multiple weeks by identifying what was already there, what the city had planned for the future and what might be added to enhance the existing fabric.

Visits to the site and its surroundings were supplemented with tours of adjacent projects by other designers (primarily the Chappelle Carbon Park development). Seeing the area through different lenses and speaking with urbanists who had already undertaken analysis of the site, we began to understand the resources we were working with. We also supplemented this with research into broader programmatic and urban planning ideologies. We found that the market has been showing a rise in smaller, handicraft industries, which we immediately thought would create a nice counterpoint to and supplement of the already-existing heavier industries on the site. In addition, Paris is facing a housing crisis and lack of affordable housing. More specifically, we learned that the 18th and 19th Arrondissements have a significantly lower average income than other areas of Paris, and is predominantly composed of recent immigrants, students and minorities who are increasingly unable to afford the rent in the area.

It immediately became clear to us that affordable housing and large-scale communal space for public amenities were missing in the area and should be incorporated into our project with proper adjacencies: to public amenities and to the public Chapel Charbon park behind. The housing could fill the existing setback between industry buildings and public street, simultaneously creating an urban street front and buffer the industrial buildings at the heart of the site. We also always knew that we wanted to maintain the core, existing industrial buildings as production hubs, so in a way, the programmatic organization of the site designed itself.

Additionally, our research also revealed a dormant network of existing rail lines adjacent to the site. If renovated and put back to use, this would immediately create a transportation loop for goods to be efficiently delivered around the city. Thus, this set of rail lines was another creative driver for our vision and the layout of the site.

KOOZ How does the project seek to connect the site and city at large? How do you imagine this relationship evolving over time?

AF | SK The site is geographically and programmatically set up to act as a mixing ground and point of connection for various groups of people at the local/neighborhood scale and even at the city/nation scale.

On a local to city scale, it creates a multi-purpose zone of confluence for existing industry workers, new residents, and the surrounding community. There are new spaces for affordable housing and new public amenities, including but not limited to: shops, a movie theater, cafeteria, social organizations, urban farming and public sports facilities. The idea is to provide a new kind of social condenser, drawing a broader public into the site who will see it either for the first time, or in a different light. Some may be residents of the new housing units, they may be regular visitors of the public amenities, or they may be the workers who have already been working there for many years, creating a richer and more diverse built and social environment integrated into their daily life on the site. Architecturally, we manifested this through transparency and juxtaposition, with the goals of happenstance interactions, and visual dialogues with the industry workers who already inhabit the site.

On a larger city to nation-wide scale, CAP-18 is strategically located to act as a pivotal node between the inner and outer limits of the city. CAP-18 historically acted as a major transit hub between commercial/industrial areas and the urban fabric of Paris, as it lies adjacent to the former Petite Ceinture rail line that ran around the entire city. We proposed to re-instate the cargo rail line that would serve to re-connect the site to the city at large, and beyond to industries and supply-chain flows connected to the rest of France.

With the inevitable continued growth, densification, and expansion of the Paris city edge, we imagine that these relationships and dialogues will only intensify in the coming years. Of course, specific programmatic needs and spatial requirements will change over time, and our buildings and environments should naturally adapt to that. However, we hope that these general systems of reuse, programmatic adjacencies, and transit-loops (established by the project now), might serve to maintain the link between residential, commercial, industrial, and urban over time.

KOOZ What is for you the power of the architectural imaginary?

AF | SK To us, the architectural imaginary is the initial and essential core of any architectural project. One must have a vision, an imagination of what a site, project, or building can be. Specific goals may be different for every project we encounter, but it is our task as architects to imagine what is possible, to push the boundaries of the ordinary, and to give back something that is more than what is initially apparent.

The imaginary dimension of architecture gives us the tools and the freedom to explore this: to re-frame the way we approach and use space, to re-examine the way in which we interact with things and one another, and to question the physical or conceptual frameworks which we easily take for granted.

Architectural imaginary may sit in the background, a subconscious factor in the back of our minds, or in the foreground as the driving ambition behind a project, but it is always the basis for how we create something new. It is an essential part of the discipline, which requires us to question why and how we make decisions and serves to push the limits of what we believe is possible forward. For us as designers, the architectural imaginary offers the chance to free ourselves from constraints, and imagine the world in all the ways that it could be.

Bio

Shree Kale is a researcher, designer, and community advocate. He is interested in the intersection of politics, history, and architecture as a tool for design justice. He currently works at Adjaye Associates in New York focusing on community engagement and institutional projects. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and Art History from Rice University where he graduated with a Distinction in Research and Creative Work. He has previously worked at RMA Architects/Rahul Mehrotra, and MIRACLES/Viola Ago.

Anna Fritz received her Bachelor of Architecture, and her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, Studio Art, and Art History from Rice University, where she graduated summa cum laude. She is currently an architect at Karamuk Kuo in Zürich, Switzerland, and spends her spare time working on sculpture and installation. Previously, she has worked at Thomas Phifer and Partners in New York City, MG&Co. in Houston, Lord Aeck Sargent in Atlanta, and Carlos Jimenez Studio in Houston.