Paris Housing by Vous Êtes Ici

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The six-storey building was designed by Vous Êtes Ici Architectes to provide 11 social housing units beside a school in the 5th Arrondissement of the French capital, on a site previously occupied by a low-rise warehouse.
Rather than building across the entire site, the architects developed an irregularly shaped block that follows the rhythms of the surrounding architecture and frames a pair of gardens at the north and south-east edges.
These also line up with the main road and pedestrian pathway that line two edges of the site, helping to the reduce the visual impact of the structure.
"The building is set back from the street, allowing the sunlight to reach the school courtyard set across the street," explained studio founders Alexandre Becker, Paul Pflughaupt and Julien Paulré. "This setup allows respiration and gives space back to the pedestrian passage."
While some of the building's walls are clad with timber planks, others are covered with pre-weathered zinc. At ground level, there are also walls of dark brickwork, which demarcate entrances.
Windows with orange frames add colour to the elevations. This also features within the building's stairwells and corridors, where walls, floors and railings are uniformly painted in the same hue.
No more than three apartments are located on each floor and the angular shapes of the building give each home a non-standard shape.
"The created volumes allow different typologies for the apartments as well as creating views for all," said the architects.
South-facing loggias allow apartments to benefit from sunlight during the peak of the day.
Graphic logos adorn doors to direct residents to bicycle storage and bin stores, while a grassy terrace is located on the roof.