The main idea was to reintroduce in the heart of the arrondissement skills and food that have marked its history: sugar, chocolate, fresh, breweries ... Innovation is reinvention: the project finds its roots in time throughout history of the 13th arrondissement but reinterprets by innovating. Pooling, short circuits, urban agriculture, circular economy, knowledge sharing, openness, continuous assessment or co‐location, have guided our action. Massena station, preserved and enhanced, dialogues with silo building clad in wood where vegetation comes to nest. Between, a monumental staircase reveals itself on the side of the slope, flowery and cultivated meadow that restores circulation between the high and low levels of the site.
The historic building of the station is the heart of an ecosystem that relocates artisanal production by sharing tools, facilities, resources. The lower level hosts chocolate factory and coffee roasting. At the Massena boulevard takes up a world cuisine workshop, in a logic of "do it yourself" and short circuits. Massena station, emblem of the industrial age and the transport revolution, has kept its large windows, its pleasing proportions and its spacious interior. A heightening of a level is made in respect of the typology of the historic four‐sided roof. The architectural project reconciles the two areas sectioned through a monumental staircase that values the plant slope.
Environmental responsibility is at the heart of the project. Beyond the design and construction phases, it is part of the daily uses and extends into the educational dimension of the site. The whole station silo is conceived as an open space. It is intended to be "hacked", that is to say modified and improved by its users. The space station is participatory. The social benefit is above all the creation of job. 30 collocations on site in the silo building are offered to young apprentices.
fresh architectures entered the contest REINVENTING PARIS launched by the city of Paris in 2015. The project was selected in the final phase of the competition (2016).
