The Immeuble Villas

A 95 unit social housing development in Paris, constructed in 1992 to a completion-winning design by architects Jean Dubus and Jean-Pierre Lott, emulates Le Corbusier’s unrealized 1922 scheme of the same name. The designers composed the building with a series of rigorously planned four-unit groupings. The dwellings, all two-bed, two bath units, are mirrored and stacked to form near-cubic modules, enabling a logical ordering system for construction. Each dwelling has high quality spaces, with story-and-a-half high living rooms, with full-height windows and outdoor terraces overlooking a public garden. And all units are dual aspect, enabling cross-ventilation. Open-air circulation corridors provide access to the dwellings and offers views overlooking the private terraces and the shared garden. Writing about the project, soon after completion, the New York Times architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, described the project as, “a masterful weaving of form and sociology, supremely urban in its clear articulation of private, semi-private and public space. It is thrilling to reflect on the difference such a design can make in the lives of families and communities.”