Master Thesis ETSAM- January 2017 [Type] Intervention in existing building Textile architecture [Location] Réservoir de Passy | Paris, France [Tutors] Marcelo Ruiz Pardo | Jaime Sanz de Haro Aula María José Aranguren [Mark] 7/10
[Entre-Telas] Collaborative boutique and atelier for fashion designer Manish Arora In the nineteenth century, a number of urban water reservoirs were built in Paris for a better water supply inside the city. Reduced the need for non-potable water to street cleaning and park watering, Passy Reservoir has become an underused infrastructure. The aim of the project is to enliven this space by giving it a new function as boutique and atelier for fashion designer Manish Arora, while conserving the current needed capacity of the reservoir. Embedded in a block in the 16th arrondisement, Passy Reservoir consists of four deposits enclosed by nine meters-high blank walls. The project is developed in the two most public deposits and only ones sharing structural module and floor levels. Acting as a much needed link with the city and lodging vertical circulations and service rooms, the faรงade to Lauriston Street is the hub of the intervention. Perpendicular to this wall, six barrelvaulted glass volumes supported by slender metallic arches are fitted into the original structure, filling the interior with natural light. Opposed public entrances direct the main circulation alongside the faรงade, through the existing groin vaults. ETFE textile volumes glide through the interior adapting to the surrounding architecture and sewing all the elements together. Impressed with patterns designed by Manish Arora, the ETFE membranes can be replaced over seasons, making the building a living element. For a better control of solar gain, an additional set of metallic arches serves as structure for a mixture of deciduous and evergreen climbing plants. Inside, the combination of transparencies and colors diffuses limits, creating exhibition, sales and working spaces that are finite but visually related to each other and to the deposits. The heaviness of the original fabric juxtaposed with the lightness of the new architecture, visitors would experience a world of contrasts, in line with the creations of fashion designer Manish Arora.