The Pervenches Triangle is an urban void, used solely as a car park, which needs redesigning and reformulating. The project proposes a clear redefinition of this urban space by the addition of a small-scale building (3 floors + basement) along the Rue des Pervenches. This simple gesture would redefine the Rue des Pervenches by giving it an urban facade and a high quality, safe and semi-public outdoor space. This would be used as a playground during school hours and would become a true public space, a square for local residents, in the evenings, at weekends and during school holidays.
Due to its small scale, which contrasts with the very high buildings surrounding it (24 m), the project redefines the external spaces while maintaining the site’s primary characteristic, namely, a district level urban void. The project can be interpreted as an "urban house" amid a circus of high-rise blocks. Its position at the centre of the void also gives it the status of a unique object, befitting its function as a public building, which still fits seamlessly into the existing urban fabric.
The project’s positioning reinforces the link with the Pervenches School. The future pedestrian axis of the Rue des Pervenches becomes the backbone of the site, onto which are grafted the entrances to the school facilities. The mirrored configurations of the two schools place them in a similar situation with raised and protected playgrounds on either side of the pedestrian axis.
On the large facades, the staircases are clearly expressed and act as a structural bracing design. Reflection on the circulation geometry, a key issue in this project, provides the basis for the elevational expression. The building’s architectural language comes from assembling and exploiting three different shaped concrete elements: the solid horizontal bars functioning as guardrails, the vertical C-shaped panels and the diagonal flights of stairs. These three elements are used to compose the project’s facades. They give it a specificity of its own while forging links with the not-so-distant past, when post-war architects like Poullion or Honegger erected simple but oh so refined buildings.
