LOFT COLONEL OUDOT

Introducing the landscape of Paris’ Petite Ceinture inside the house and blending the frontier between inside and outside.

The loft is located in a quiet neighborhood near the Porte Dorée, in the South-East of Paris, within an ex-industrial building facing onto the Petite Ceinture: a former double track railway, running circularly around the city that has been partially reused as a tram track and converted into a greenbelt. The building entrance is a surprising Parisian experience. An anonymous façade on the tiny rue du Colonel-Oudot hides a beautiful courtyard, with an unexpected and quite magical atmosphere. The courtyard revolves around a large tree and is surrounded by white brick facades on which open horizontal windows, echoing the industrial past of the building/area. The alternance between small glazed, one-story buildings and three-storey ones gives an intimate feeling to the place. The courtyard allows direct access to the loft, which is situated below the railway line. On the ground floor, the space opens onto the embankment of the Petite Ceinture. The rooms on the upper floors overlook the abandoned railway tracks, covered with shrubs and wild grass, thus opening a true “third landscape”, according to Gilles Clément’s definition. The concept behind the project revolves around the introduction of this landscape inside the house, blending the border between the inside and the outside. On the ground floor, one large room overlooks the garden. The glassed walls on the ground floor have been re-designed to make the most out of the view, facing the natural-growing garden on the slopes of the embankment. The windows can be fully opened, enabling a seamless flow between the garden and the living room. To free the living areas and the rooms from any constraints, all the utility spaces (toilet, kitchen and storage cupboards) have been built on the back wall and superimposed on three levels. The staircase is made of a thin 4mm folded sheet. The back wall is cladded in satin stainless steel and glass: two materials that reflect the colors and the light of the landscape outside.