Livio Vacchini - Switzerland
Apartment Building
Rue Albert, Paris
1992 - 1993


The complex with 60 low-cost apartments and six shops on the ground floor is located in the 13th arrondissement in Paris, near the Place d' Italie.
It was errected over an almost square area measuring 45 x 50 m, and is conforming to the height of the surroundig edification.
The front along Rue Albert is an intentionally abstract façade. The facade seems to be a kind of aluminium ribbon and glass hanging above the shopping spaces.
The main facade to the Rue Albert is generated by the array of tunnels. This front assumes an urban character with respect to the surrounding space of the city.
This main facades is related to the one of Casa Aurora. Livio Vacchini performs an oberation of sbtraction on the wall surface. The minimal but clear incisions into the front
combine antithetically with the insertion of brise-soleil blades along the vertical glazed area. The interpretation of the stories is deliberately obfuscated by
the arrangement of two brise-soleil per floor.

Livio Vacchini designed the construction as a series of orientend, contiguous tunnels. The building entirely occupies the available lot. The apartments
are located at the ends of the tunnels, each with a direct relation to the paved interal court. This gives the tunnels an autonomous domestic function.