PARIS: MVRDV has been granted planning approval to overhaul a 1970s complex in Paris, which includes adding a new facade of colorful stacked boxes to an existing shopping center.
The Rotterdam-based studio plans to renovate and extend Vandamme Nordpart of the Ilôt Vandamme block designed by French architect Pierre Dufau, to “reintroduce the lost human scale” and give a new identity to the Vandamme Nord complex.
Bounded by Rue Mouchotte, Avenue du Maine and the rail tracks of Gare Montparnasse, the triangular Ilôt Vandamme was of the largest urban design projects in Paris at the time. Most of the site is taken up by a horizontal slab block, but the 30-story Pullman Hotel rises up on one side.
MVRDV plans to renovate the shopping center, offices, hotel, library and underground car park, but also plans to add housing, a kindergarten, a conference center and improve pedestrian connections across the site.
MVRDV will also create 62 social housing units and a 500-square-metre kindergarten.
Approximately 150 scooter parking spaces will be added within the six-story underground car park…
