URBAN FACTORIES

Heritage as cultural preservation should consider also encompassing the preservation of other embedded vital resources. Our proposal for an Urban factory for RIVP considers how to comfortably retain valuable craft manufacturing and light industry within our cities and adapting our buildings to suit shifting climatic needs.
 
The HAM is a vertical factory in Paris, designed in the 1980s, which houses a range of different light industry businesses. With a changing climate and increasing challenges of urban heat island effects the original building fabric has become poorly suited to its orientation and its current uses for fabrication of ceramics and other light industry means it suffers immensely from overheating. An association of diverse inspirations mixing the “high-tech” aesthetics of an exoskeleton with postmodern elements, the architecture’s heterogeneity generated multiple conditions offering a malleable open plan, but no comfort driven considerations. Our proposal in collaboration with of SIBAT – Société d’Ingénierie du BAtiment et des Travaux publics and ACOUSTIQUE VIVIE & ASSOCIES considers the potential for the exoskeleton to serve a new evolving purpose in service to the building’s siting in relation to changing climatic conditions. 

Our proposal for RIVP, uses the exoskeleton to hang a canopy structure of a recycled extruded terracotta which folds into the cladding and a planter box to create a new façade which strategically reduces the amount of glazing and provides a new fully insulated cladding facade in the virtual thickness created by the exo-skeleton.  The re cladding improves thermal performance and provides shade to the south, and west facing windows. The planter boxes also assist with relieving the heat and are at a manageable height where each window can easily access them for maintenance by individual tenants.

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