Principles

An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about principles

Narrative façades: window jambs follow a colour code reflecting the interior functions, while the colours of the loggias highlight the different parts of the tower.

Nicolas Grosmond

A new skyline for Ivry-sur-Seine and the river Seine. The thinness of the towers, the modulation of the heights and the permeability between the volumes allow for better views, multiple orientations, and a great diversity.

With a footprint of 13.5 x 16.5 metres, the social housing tower is the tallest and most slender of the five buildings.

The façades convey the richness and diversity of the interior typologies.

Each tower is structured in three distinct parts, creating three vertical readings to support its integration into three different contexts: the street, the city, and the sky.

Project • By STAR strategies + architecture • Housing

START-Ivry

Rethinking housing from the inside out: a new generation of social and private housing, where the dwelling adapts to its inhabitants – and not the other way around. START-Ivry sets out to redefine housing culture. It rejects the prevailing standardisation of housing production and responds to the growing diversity of contemporary lifestyles. It rethinks housing from the inside — starting from the resident — restoring the central role of the floor plan, and boldly reversing the conventional process by starting with architecture: the architect is selected first, and developers are then invited to compete. START embodies a genuine paradigm shift. START stands for Social, Transformable, Affordable and Resilient Typol... More

Gert-Jan de Jong, Arc2 architecten

Project • By Arc2 architecten • Housing

Villa for a Trumpet Player Almere

A new residential estate on the shore of the Noorderplassen is the location of a villa which Arc2 designed for a trumpetter. The font of the house looks out over a marina and the rear faces onto a Zen garden. The living spaces at the front and rear are linked by a wide multifunctional staircase. The window openings in the side walls are arranged in a musical rhythm. Arc2's decision to use a steel frame structure clad in timber weatherboarding and other natural materials was based on the Cradle-To-Cradle principle. More