Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) has designed a new, mixed-use office building in Paris called ILOW. Created with property development company Bouygues Immobilier, the project was made to act as a bridge between La Défense and the nearby social housing projects Tours Nuages (Cloud Towers). Designed in collaboration with Agence d'Architecture Willerval et Associés, the building takes on the shape of "open arms" connecting two different socio-economic neighborhoods.
ILOW was formed using parametric design to generate a facade that reinterprets the Tours Nuages. CRA’s design aims to bring together the two adjacent neighborhoods with two wings, "two open arms" around central green courtyard to connect ILOW with the neighboring public park. The design provides 12,500 square meters (134,550 square feet) of mixed-function spaces, including offices, a restaurant, and a café.
“We are trying to use design promote social encounters - between different people, cultures and social groups,” says Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA and director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “This is what is unique about physical -- as opposed to digital -- space, something which the pandemic made us all too aware of. We can use architecture to bridge across different social worlds.”
CRA has filed building permits to the local municipal authority.
News via Carlo Ratti Associati
