The roof as a commons
The modernists promised roofs that would earn their keep — gymnasiums, running tracks, kindergartens in the sky. Most of those promises stayed on paper. This one is being built: four classrooms and a shaded court on the roof of a housing cooperative a street back from the Vieux-Port.
The classrooms sit under shallow concrete sawtooths that scoop north light and shrug off the mistral. The court is planted with three pines in oversized terracotta pots, because a playground at parapet height needs shade it can move.
Working over ninety households
Building on an occupied roof is a logistics project wearing an architecture project's clothes. Every element arrives by crane on Tuesday mornings, the only slot the co-op voted for. The concrete is precast, the facade is bolted aluminium, and the loudest week of the programme — cutting the new stair through — was scheduled for the school holidays. Handover is set for the autumn term.