Its programmes juxtaposed rather than superimposed, this groundscraper consists of two built strips surrounding a central void. ‘The warehouse has become the centrepiece within the wider urban transformation of north-east Paris’ Aptly nicknamed ‘double mac’ and coordinated by OMA, winner of an invited competition for the masterplan of the warehouse’s conversion in 2008, the project accommodates parking and retail spaces, cafés and restaurants, offices, a business incubator and amenities – a nursery, primary and secondary schools, a gymnasium and a community centre – as well as more than 1,100 residential units, over half of which are social housing, including accommodation for workers and students. This impressive operation of densification is literally about building a piece of city atop an existing piece of city. Entrepôt Macdonald stands as an alternative to the decontextualised megastructures of the grands ensembles built in the 1960s by blurring the boundaries between architecture and urban design. It was crucial to avoid creating a floating enclave, to instead relate the scheme to its surroundings and create connections in this already fragmented territory. With a thoroughfare to the north, a canal to the east and rail tracks to the south, the warehouse sits on a complex site of the 19th arrondissement’s unresolved post-industrial urban landscape – the slightly more unknown side of Paris, certainly a context that contrasts with the popular perception of the city. Home to the city’s car pound and mail sorting centre until 2010, the warehouse, now quite a few floors taller and inhabited by 3,000 residents, has become the centrepiece within the wider urban transformation of north-east Paris. Within the ring road of Paris lies a groundscraper that transcends the city’s boundariesĮntrepôt Macdonald’s 617 metres in length grant it the status of longest building in Paris, making it a unique development opportunity within the boundaries of the Périphérique, the ring road that encloses the French capital.

Oma architecture