Location: Hauts-de-Seine, France Year: 2025 Architects: Vincent Lavergne Architecture + COVE Architectes Photography by: Charles Bouchaïb
This project involved the transformation and extension of a 1970s office building in Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris.
Set back from the street within a residential neighbourhood, the original building related poorly to its urban surroundings. Its façade, considered to be of limited architectural quality, had already undergone a first renovation in 1996 to improve its thermal performance. However, its distinctly commercial office character remained unchanged, as did the setback from the street, which resulted in a poorly defined and underused urban space.
This project thus stemmed from a threefold ambition: to reclaim this neglected space, to reconcile the building with its residential context, and to bring it up to contemporary standards of performance and comfort. Our first intervention was to eliminate the urban void by extending the building toward the street, across its full height. This addition created a new continuous street frontage, fully concealed the neighbouring building's gable wall, and generated additional floor space.
To integrate the new street façade into its residential fabric, we proposed a hybrid architectural language, positioned between residential and commercial typologies. The 135 cm grid typical of office façades was combined into 270 cm bays. This doubling of the module creates wider openings reminiscent of Parisian residential windows, while ensuring optimal daylight penetration for the workspaces. The domestic character of the façade also anticipates future change : the building could eventually be converted into housing without significant architectural alteration.
In terms of materiality, Saint-Maximin stone—widely used in Haussmannian architecture—was selected for its timeless character and its strong connection to the architectural heritage of the Greater Paris region.
The courtyard façade adopts a different approach. While retaining the original composition as a trace of the building’s previous state, it has been carefully reworked. The existing staircase has been extended and brought into prominence, while a metal mesh unifies the composition, creating continuity between old and new. Text description by the architects.
