The house appeared near the banks of the Seine, in a complex reconstruction zone, the center of which is the former Renault plant. Now public and commercial buildings are being built there according to the designs of Jean Nouvel, Sigeru Ban, Dominique Perrault, but no less attention is paid to social facilities, traditionally for France - high-quality in architecture - for example, a kindergarten, a student hostel, a complex of affordable housing.
The Antonini Darmon building, which contains 33 social apartments, belongs to this line. It is located in the middle of a residential area, where the houses are united by a common garden: among other things, it serves as a natural runoff of rainwater and supports the biodiversity necessary even for urban areas, which is a common important theme for the reconstruction zone in Boulogne-Billancourt.
Considering the central position of the house, all its facades are equal. They are covered with precast concrete arches: a reference to history - the neoclassical arcade of the Renault factory. But, unlike this industrial monument, the arches in the Antonini Darmon building are functional: they protect the apartments from the sun and outside views. They are combined with terraces that play the role of balconies: on three sides they are of equal width, but on the northern facade, where it is more important to catch the sun's rays than to hide from them, they are already made.
