Liste des projets

Farshid Moussavi

  • Site : https://www.farshidmoussavi.com/
  • Adresse : 130 fenchurch street ec3m 5dj London
FARSHID MOUSSAVI OBE RA BSC ARCH, DIPL. ARCH, M ARCH II HARVARD, RIBA Farshid Moussavi OBE RA is an internationally acclaimed architect and Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Moussavi’s approach is characterised by an openness to change and a commitment to the intellectual and cultural life of architecture. Alongside leading an award-winning architectural practice, Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA), she lectures regularly at arts institutions and schools of architecture worldwide and is a published author. Moussavi was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to architecture. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2015 and Professor of Architecture at the RA Schools in 2017. At FMA, Moussavi’s completed projects include the acclaimed Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, USA; La Folie Divine, a residential complex in Montpellier; a multi-tenure residential complex in the La Défense district of Paris, and flagship stores for Victoria Beckham in London and Hong Kong. Previously Moussavi was co-founder of the internationally renowned London-based Foreign Office Architects (FOA) where she co-authored many award-winning international projects including the Yokohama International Cruise Terminal and the Spanish Pavilion at the Aichi International Expo, London’s Ravensbourne College of Media and Communication and the Leicester John Lewis Department Store and Cineplex. Moussavi’s ideas and work are at the forefront of critical debate about architecture. In 2017 she was Architectural curator of the Royal Academy Summer Show where she proposed a highly original approach, showing the internal mechanisms and construction process that underpins architecture. Her work is deeply rooted in critical research which she carries out through FunctionLab, the research branch of FMA. FunctionLab explores cultural questions that find actualisation in the building commissions of the office, allowing for informed and innovative results. With the influential series of books that Moussavi published with Harvard, The Function of…, she has explored the theory and built history of ornament, form, and style. Educated at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, University College London and Dundee University, Moussavi has taught and served as External Examiner in academic institutions worldwide. She was the Chair of the Master Jury of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004, and a member of its Steering Committee between 2005 and 2015. She continues to be a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery since 2009, and since 2018, a trustee of the Norman Foster Foundation London and New Architecture Writers (NAW) which focuses on black and minority ethnic emerging writers who are under-represented across design journalism and curation. Moussavi also serves on the Academic Court of The London School of Architecture.

L'Îlot 19

Îlot 19 is the first new housing to have been built in La Défense for 30 years. It is radical in its approach to mixed-tenure residential design: while affordable housing is often designed to look simple and inexpensive, Ilot 19 is a highly crafted building that, regardless of affluence, provides an empowering living experience through its structure, massing, circulation and materials.

Îlot 19 captures the eye with its exceptional location and takes advantage of open views of the city from three sides. Located within Les Jardins de l’Arche – an urban project initiated by the development organisation EPADESA – it has invigorated the space immediately west of La Grande Arche. To the south, it fronts the Axe Historique (historical axis) which cuts through Paris and defines a grand open space through the city between the Louvre Museum and La Défense. Beyond the Promenade de l’Arche it overlooks Puteaux cemetery and borders Neuilly cemetery in the north and a new arena in the east.

Through its combination of private apartments, student lodging, commercial and public spaces, Îlot 19 aims for the social cohesion of the pre-Haussmann building typology that accommodated the bourgeoisie, civil servants, low-wage employees and students in a single building. Within a shallow slab, the apartments – irrespective of their tenure type – are arranged to be laterally accessed in pairs by an elevator and stair core.

Residential units are arranged within a 12m-deep linear slab that grows to a deeper three-storey plinth between the level of new public space (the promenade) and the Neuilly cemetery. Commercial spaces and student housing are located in the lower levels to animate the esplanade of the Jardins de l’Arche. The upper levels provide 91 dual-aspect apartments (72 are affordable and nine are social housing apartments reserved for inhabitants of Nanterre), and one level of maisonette penthouses.

The absence of an access corridor allows residents with different habits and lifestyles to cohabit a single building without disturbing one another. Moreover the lateral arrangement is more environmentally sustainable as the resulting dual-aspect apartments benefit from natural cross ventilation and plenty of natural light and views of the city at both ends.

On the southern exposure the floors are tapered by two degrees in alternate directions to give an oblique view of the Axe Historique. This move also generates a stepped section, which means that private outdoor spaces on alternate floors are differentiated into either protruding or recessed forms. The protruding open spaces function as loggias, clad with aluminium sliding shutters for privacy and shade, while the recessed open spaces, which are shaded by the floor above, are left open to function as balconies. The stepped section of the building therefore reduces the amount of material needed for shading and contributes to environmental sustainability.

The design aims for inclusivity so that both student rooms and private residences benefit from choice and privacy. Private outdoor spaces at each end of the apartments are provided throughout the building irrespective of the tenure type. Thanks to the tapered floor profile, they range in size, shape and orientation from one end of the building to the other. All apartments and student rooms are clad with full height glazing and sliding aluminium shutters. Consequently, a student room is given the same interface with its context as one of the simplex apartments or penthouses, removing the visual cues of affordability from the urban realm they share.

The design of Îlot 19 supports the future interests of residents by using materials that will need very little maintenance: the exterior of anodised aluminium, glass, concrete and hardwood flooring will age well without the need for cleaning. In order to empower residents to reconfigure their interiors at their own pace, the structure of the building is located along the party wall between neighbours, the vertical cores and the façade leaving the apartment interiors free from fixed, load-bearing structure. Just a few months after moving in, residents had already begun to adapt their apartments by sub-dividing the rooms to suit their needs.

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