Rescuing the "Machine à Habiter": The Palladian "Villa" in the second life of Lacaton & Vassal’s Transformed "Grands-Ensembles"

Abstract

Approaching some of the questions raised in the “Material Oriented Ontology” call such as the <em>Aesthetics and Ethics of Sustainability</em>, this paper augues that the action of <em>Recycling Social Housing </em>stands for a <em>model of Social Regeneration</em>. In 1995 the awarded movie ‘La Haine’ revealed to the world the daily turmoil in which lived the inhabitants of the <em>grands-ensembles </em>(French post-war social housing): unemployment, criminality and violence were some of their constant companions. Faced by the unmistakable reality, the state promptly held as responsibles the urbanistic and architectonic models, setting into motion a large demolition-reconstruction plan, that is still up to date. Since 2004, the architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have been active opposers to this unfounded policy. Not only through writing, but also through their built work, they’ve shown that the <em>grands-ensembles </em>are passible of a second life. Taking as their prime ‘raw material’ the already built context, they’ve successively rescued the Modern Movement’s <em>machine à habiter </em>by bringing the transition spaces of the Palladian <em>villa </em>into each one of the inhabited apartments.