NZI Architectes

Description

At 29 rue Nollet in Paris, a 1930s car park – extended in the 1950s – has been transformed into a social housing residence offering 83 subsidised units. Delivered in December 2025 for the public housing agency RIVP and operated by its subsidiary Hénéo, the project turns an example of obsolete urban infrastructure into dense, dignified living. Paris still holds a vast stock of early-20th-century car parks – discreet, deep-plate, structurally generous buildings. Nollet shows how to unlock this hidden land reserve: by transforming, not replacing. Here, the landlocked plot is bordered by eight adjacent buildings. The design preserves the three concrete levels and steel trusses of the former car park. One full structural bay was surgically removed along the north–south axis, splitting the volume into two buildings fourteen metres apart. The void opens a 300-square-metre open-ground garden at the heart of the block and grants every flat a dual east–west orientation – with no purely north-facing unit. Existing structures are reinterpreted rather than erased. The ramp stays. Former light wells now feed daylight into the horizontal circulation areas. The partial reconstruction used prefabricated cross-laminated timber panels and timber-frame walls with wood-fibre insulation – a fully dry, bio-based supply chain. The project comprises 2,450 square metres of gross floor area and was completed with a construction budget of €9 million. It is certified according to NF Habitat HQE, Effinergie Rénovation, E3C1 and Biosourcé Level 1 standards. Nollet offers a replicable answer to a shared European question: How can a dense city reinvent itself without expanding?