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PROJECT REPORT: MIXED USE SCHEMES
MVRDV’s design for the block reuses as much of the concrete structure of the plinth as possible
in the world!” He adds that with the inception of the scheme being several years ago, predating the opening of MVRDV’s Paris office in 2018, it’s “been interesting to see how the office has evolved with the project.”
The brief did evolve – there were two initial aspects, to bring the hotel’s convention centre above the retail spaces, which would be on the ground floor and “grow around the south part of the tower,” which “implied a lot of reshuffling of the programme.” The second aspect was to bring the office space up to date with modern working methods, as the existing building had very deep floor plates. In the end, a co-working client took the whole space and now offers users special deals for meals in the retail area’s ground floor restaurant, which has meant less pressure on space elsewhere.
A VARIED MIX
The scheme contains a variety of uses, located closely together – retail, hotel, and office space, plus a new kindergarten and added social housing Drawings © MVRDV
Pierre des Courtis, a senior project leader at MVRDV. It presents something of a departure for Westfield from its larger models of international retail and mixed- use schemes, to something more locally- based, and scaled, and which retains existing structures.
The client asked the architects to do a “small study” in 2008 he says, and this mushroomed into a full proposal, and the client then commissioned a highly moderated version of their original scheme. In its first iteration, the tower was removed, and they “started from scratch.” He adds: “Quite quickly we realised that maybe it’s smarter to keep a lot of the existing, for economic as well as ecological reasons.” Also, he says that removing a tower in this area of Paris would mean it would be impossible to replace it on this site due to building regulations.
The project has progressed slowly when compared with similar schemes in other territories such as Asian countries, says des Courtis, joking that “things go slower in France compared with elsewhere
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The fact that there was a single client for all of the building’s functions was helpful in making decisions, particularly with an evolving set of requirements. “The big decisions were always made with a view to strike the right balance between the needs of one programme and the other,” des Courtis tells me, with the aim of being coherent across the piece.
The problem
The existing building was built “in a time when the car was the main driver,” des Courtis tells me, and this scheme was intended as a final destination for cars driving into the city centre from the south along a planned highway which, in the event, “never happened.” The scheme was hemmed in by wide boulevards, and the overall development, when viewed from the street looked “introverted and unwelcoming,” commented MVDRV. Practice founder Winy Maas commented: “This piece of the city was like an island of ‘70s nostalgia – a tower with no visible entrance, and a plinth where you could get lost between the pedestrian slabs and automobile boulevards.” There were also large unused areas, such a large hall which had been used as an ice rink and a bowling alley.
ADF MAY 2023
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