Staircase House

Paris, France

Photo © Hervé Abbadie

Architects: Moussafir Architectes

Year: 2011

Built to replace a semi-abandoned house squeezed between two buildings in the heart of a very well preserved block in central Paris, our project is a tree-like structure delimited on three sides by existing walls. Only the fully glazed south façade gives away the almost total reconstruction of the building and provides a glimpse into the volumetric complexity of its inner space. An even better metaphor for the project would be that of a gigantic stairway. The entire residence is actually a staircase: its core contains the kitchen and wet rooms; its stairwell is shaped by the gables of the neighboring buildings, while its steps and landings form a sequence of living spaces. The client wanted a home with no partitions (except for the bathrooms), which made it possible to achieve total continuity from basement to roof terrace. The steel structure is an assembly of cantilevered floors borne by the central core and partly dissociated from the three outer walls onto which concrete boxes have been grafted to serve as built-in furniture. The choice of materials reinforces the design concept: the central core, floors and ceilings are uniformly clad in locust wood whose color and grain contrast with the texture and whiteness of perimetral masonry walls.