CALME BLOC

Monograph. Architects, authors, and photographers – different viewpoints on a dense and complex building in Paris’s 20th arrondissement. Located just above the city’s eight-lane ring road, this “calm block” was recently completed by Parisian architecture firms Chartier Dalix and Avenier Cornejo, which combines a kindergarten with 240 studio apartments for young workers – in a rapidly changing neighbourhood. The photographer Myr Muratet, who spent several weeks living there, offers us an authentic reportage of the building’s appropriation by its new inhabitants – a portrait of what happens once the architects have packed up and gone home. Its users’ behaviour, habits, and adaptations confirm or subvert the designers’ intentions. As the building weighs anchor in its neighbourhood, not only does the alchemy of this process resonate in the immediate surroundings, but also further afield, in the wake of individual users’ destinies. Inquisitive visitor Sébastien Marot sets sail on an urban and architectural cruise, exploring the physical, social, and historical flux that is the undercurrent of this built reality.Chartier Dalix architectes has received various awards, such as the Europe 40 under 40 Award (2012), and the « prix de la première œuvre », awarded by the Moniteur Group (2009) for a sport hall in Meaux.