Big! Bad? Modern: Nasrine Seraji - Big, Heavy, Beautiful

Eugène Hénard was not the same kind of futurist as F.T. Marinetti, but he helped us see the future for at least a few minutes in June 2007 when we won a competition to design a bus maintenance centre with 180 public housing units and a day-care facility above it. The visionary section of a “future street” that Hénard had imagined would be realised… In Paris, the substratum of the city is extremely dense – the metro, RER, RATP bus depots, the subterranean infrastructure of Les Halles all occupy it. This functional density of underground Paris is as necessary to the life of the city as the residential density of its noble buildings above ground… The basement level of the 14th arrondissement of Paris must have been extremely popular with sculptors who worked with plaster of Paris. It resembles a gigantic, empty hole with tunnels and reservoirs running through it. In this area of the city, every new building must first consolidate the ground beneath it, as had to be done in 1932 for the construction of Le Corbusier’s Pavillon Suisse at the Cité Universitaire…We are consolidating our ground with the underground levels that house the bus garage, parking, and other RATP maintenance services. The chance to use public transport as the foundation of our building is extremely exciting. How can we superimpose Le Corbusier’s trois établissements humains – live, work, leisure?