Transformation of “La Fantaisie Hotel”

La Fantaisie establishes an intimate conversation with its urban environment. While the original structure has been preserved, the building has undergone extensive redevelopment, resulting in increased density. Additionally, the structure has been raised with additional floors to create space for a landscaped area at the center of the plot. One of the challenges was to provide breathing spaces and a sense of life outside the rooms, envisioning the overall experience as a walk in a garden. The rooms have been expanded, and their geometry altered to facilitate direct communication with either the street or the garden.

The streetside frontage has been designed as a full-height filter, sheer and elegant, creating a new urban landmark. Its expression reveals the simple and geometric layout of the rooms, incorporating floor-to-ceiling windows to compensate for the lack of natural light in a relatively narrow street.

The facade’s materiality, consisting of zinc in a greenish-grey aged finish, blends multiple expressions in a celebration of the Parisian landscape. This includes the zinc and copper of the roofs, as well as the wealth of façade ornaments, aiming to strike a balance between the built environment and landscape provisions.