Press Release
Porch, lobby, staircase, elevator, corridor, shared terrace, walkway, bike room, vegetable garden… what does the grammar of common areas and their everyday use reveal about our society?
Never before has a study examined common areas from an architectural perspective within the French context. The exhibition Parties Communes (“Common Areas”), curated by Aldrick Beckmann and Jean-Philippe Hugron, opens up this exploration. Through both historical and contemporary analysis, the exhibition speaks to urbanism professionals as well as to the residents of Paris and Greater Paris. It invites visitors to see these familiar places as complex spatial entities in their own right and to unpack how they are designed and used.
Parties Communes explores the architectural, social, and economic dimensions of everyday shared spaces through an extensive collection of archival materials, drawings, and diagrams. Case studies of metropolitan architecture present various typologies of shared areas, complemented by research into their contemporary uses, supported by photographs, testimonies, and artistic representations.
As the first sites of social interaction, common areas function as tangible and indispensable social networks for the inhabitants of cities. Yet, in today’s context of a strained housing market and urban densification, allocating space to common areas has become a new challenge for both private and public designers. Increasingly regarded as a variable to be adjusted downward, these spaces nonetheless remain a focus of ambition for some architects, landlords, and developers, who aim to make their proportions and uses more generous.
Combining scientific rigor with a sensitive perspective, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the future of shared spaces and to recognize their essential role in collective life — as places of meeting, care, and mutual support.
A shared exhibition… in a new shared space!
Because they lie at the heart of collective life, common areas are also places of inclusion, exchange, and encounter.
As part of its metropolitan off-site program, the Pavillon de l’Arsenal is pleased to present the exhibition Parties Communes in partnership with Plateau Urbain, a cooperative specializing in temporary urbanism, at the site of the former La Rochefoucauld Hospital.
Temporarily transforming the site into a hybrid place ahead of its redevelopment, Plateau Urbain is collaborating with developers Giboire and Galia as well as with Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP) to ensure an 18-month transitional period. This phase aims to test ecological, inclusive, and locally rooted uses before the site’s full renovation. For the first time, the garden will be open to Parisians, becoming an ecological, social, and educational laboratory.
The site will host various actors from the social and solidarity economy: the association Aurore (a major player in social integration), ESAJ (École Supérieure d’Architecture des Jardins), ESA (École Spéciale d’Architecture), and Le Récho (a humanitarian catering collective) will collaborate with 48 resident organizations to make this a space for ecological stewardship, creativity, and social diversity.
This collaboration provides an opportunity for the Pavillon de l’Arsenal to engage with new audiences, notably through an educational program in partnership with Aurore, dedicated to welcoming and supporting people facing precarity.
The exhibition Parties Communes will also feature a public cultural program: guided tours, coloring-based building games for children and families, discussions, and film screenings. The exhibition thus becomes a space for experimentation and dialogue — a living reflection of the environments it seeks to explore.
Porch, lobby, staircase, elevator, corridor, shared terrace, walkway, bike room, vegetable garden… what does the grammar of common areas and their everyday use reveal about our society?
Never before has a study examined common areas from an architectural perspective within the French context. The exhibition Parties Communes (“Common Areas”), curated by Aldrick Beckmann and Jean-Philippe Hugron, opens up this exploration. Through both historical and contemporary analysis, the exhibition speaks to urbanism professionals as well as to the residents of Paris and Greater Paris. It invites visitors to see these familiar places as complex spatial entities in their own right and to unpack how they are designed and used.
Parties Communes explores the architectural, social, and economic dimensions of everyday shared spaces through an extensive collection of archival materials, drawings, and diagrams. Case studies of metropolitan architecture present various typologies of shared areas, complemented by research into their contemporary uses, supported by photographs, testimonies, and artistic representations.
As the first sites of social interaction, common areas function as tangible and indispensable social networks for the inhabitants of cities. Yet, in today’s context of a strained housing market and urban densification, allocating space to common areas has become a new challenge for both private and public designers. Increasingly regarded as a variable to be adjusted downward, these spaces nonetheless remain a focus of ambition for some architects, landlords, and developers, who aim to make their proportions and uses more generous.
Combining scientific rigor with a sensitive perspective, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the future of shared spaces and to recognize their essential role in collective life — as places of meeting, care, and mutual support.
A shared exhibition… in a new shared space!
Because they lie at the heart of collective life, common areas are also places of inclusion, exchange, and encounter.
As part of its metropolitan off-site program, the Pavillon de l’Arsenal is pleased to present the exhibition Parties Communes in partnership with Plateau Urbain, a cooperative specializing in temporary urbanism, at the site of the former La Rochefoucauld Hospital.
Temporarily transforming the site into a hybrid place ahead of its redevelopment, Plateau Urbain is collaborating with developers Giboire and Galia as well as with Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP) to ensure an 18-month transitional period. This phase aims to test ecological, inclusive, and locally rooted uses before the site’s full renovation. For the first time, the garden will be open to Parisians, becoming an ecological, social, and educational laboratory.
The site will host various actors from the social and solidarity economy: the association Aurore (a major player in social integration), ESAJ (École Supérieure d’Architecture des Jardins), ESA (École Spéciale d’Architecture), and Le Récho (a humanitarian catering collective) will collaborate with 48 resident organizations to make this a space for ecological stewardship, creativity, and social diversity.
This collaboration provides an opportunity for the Pavillon de l’Arsenal to engage with new audiences, notably through an educational program in partnership with Aurore, dedicated to welcoming and supporting people facing precarity.
The exhibition Parties Communes will also feature a public cultural program: guided tours, coloring-based building games for children and families, discussions, and film screenings. The exhibition thus becomes a space for experimentation and dialogue — a living reflection of the environments it seeks to explore.
