Retirement homes, especially those for dependent residents requiring medical care, have received rather bad press in France recently. In January, journalist Victor Castanet published Les Fossoyeurs (The Gravediggers), a shock exposé that accused elder-care group Orpea of wide-ranging abuse and neglect due to relentless cost-cutting in pursuit of maximum profit. But, even before the scandal broke, établissements d’hébergement pour personnes dépendantes (EHPADs), as they’re known here, were feared as grim, depressing places you’d do better to avoid. At the 94-bed Résidence Sara Weill-Raynal in Paris’s 20th arrondissement, which was built and run by the city, local architects Avenier Cornejo did everything they could to buck the trend.
Located in a formerly working-class neighborhood of fin-de-siècle brick buildings and Modernist slab blocks, the site was already home to a 1970s EHPAD that fell far short of modern standards and regulations. Rather than demolish or refurbish, the city opted for a drastic transformation that saw Avenier Cornejo strip the building back to its concrete frame and bring the street facade forward 6 feet (gaining much-needed extra floor space) to line up with a neighboring building. The care bestowed on the project is made immediately clear in both the choice of cladding—the same long, dark bricks that Peter Zumthor specified for his Kolumba Museum in Cologne, which was hardly the cheapest option—and the generous windows with their golden-oak frames. “We put a lot of money into the fenestration,” says Christelle Avenier, “because old people spend so much time in bed either watching TV or looking out the window.” Much larger than those of the original EHPAD, the new windows come without balconies, as requested by the city. “They told us no one ever used the old balconies,” explains Miguel Cornejo, “which just filled up with pigeon droppings.”
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.