Limestone en bloc

Solid, minimalist, sustainable: the social housing by Parisian architects Barrault Pressacco is an impressive contemporary interpretation of solid natural stone façades and demonstrates their potential in terms of resource conservation and eco-balance.

The massive limestone façades of historic buildings and the prestigious townhouses of the Haussmann era characterize the Parisian cityscape. However, they are more than unusual for social housing. In the 11th arrondissement, Parisian architects Thibaut Barrault and Cyril Pressacco have realized such a project. In the structurally heterogeneous quarter of Rue Oberkampf, their new seven-storey building stands wall to wall with a magnificent residential building from the 1880s. The architects respond to its opulent façade decoration with contemporary interpretations of load-bearing limestone exterior walls made of solid ashlars.

Calm and subtly differentiated in their design, they appear both elegant and powerful in their homogeneity. Recessed window openings emphasize the thickness of the walls. The fact that there are no thin stone slabs in front is evident in the design of the walls. Neither slab joints nor vertical joints are visible: the ashlars were cut in the factory in such a way that they form both jambs and pilaster strips. Instead of an additive decoration as in the historical neighboring buildings, a puristic and fine structure is created here with clear geometric cut-outs. The beveled elements lend plasticity to the monolithic façade, enhanced by the grazing light.

As with many Parisian townhouses, the base floor with stores and the residential floors above are made of different materials: The first floor was constructed from dark exposed concrete. Its polished surfaces reveal the stone grain in a terrazzo-like manner and form a striking contrast to the cream-colored limestone of the six floors above. The architects also used polished exposed concrete for the wide-span lintels on the courtyard side, which give the façade a strong horizontal accent.

The architects did not base the load-bearing limestone façades primarily on the context or historical aspects of the building: “The sustainability and eco-balance of the natural material was important to us,” explains Cyril Pressacco. “Because compared to the energy and CO2-intensive production of steel and concrete, comparatively little energy is required to quarry, cut and move natural stone.” As a domestic product, limestone is available in large quantities in France and transportation routes are short. Limestone is solid, durable and low-maintenance: the traditional material and its construction methods “offer great potential that needs to be rediscovered”, they say. Barrault Pressacco also addressed this in an exhibition at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal in 2018, in which they presented innovative approaches to construction, cost-effectiveness and sustainability. Here, they focused on the limestones of the Paris Basin, their significance in the history of Parisian architecture and their use in current construction projects. The production from the nine still active limestone quarries with short production routes and the promotion of the local economy make limestone a regionally available resource and a promising material for the construction industry. (…)

You can find the complete article on social housing by Parisian architects Barrault Pressacco in our current Baumeister issue 09/2019.