Research on an alternative cooperative housing project, balancing living memory and civic governance in Greater Paris.
PROJECT PRESENTATION
Immersion in the dominant production frameworks of the city reveals their limits: under the influence of speculative logics and capital turnover, housing becomes a standardized, commodified product, stripping residents of the ability to act upon their own living spaces. This study focuses on the framework that would allow civil society to actively reinvest in these spaces and, in doing so, influence the quality of housing—both as intimate space and as a foundation of the urban commons.
To envision this framework, mnémo revisits a pioneering model, surprisingly little documented: the Usines Bertheau. Between 1980 and 2000, twelve cooperative housing projects there enabled access to homeownership at 50–80% below market prices, thanks to a few simple levers: affordable land, a driving project initiator, resident-led project management structured as a real estate investment company (SCI) without developers, unfinished units delivered to residents, and long-term collective governance. The industrial character of the existing buildings, treated on a case-by-case basis, gave rise to a strong architectural identity and to pathways with unique atmospheres—a genius loci nurtured by collective intelligence.
The goal is to transmit a culture of inhabiting, interpret its concrete tools, and make them operational in today’s Greater Paris context, for both policymakers and residents.
The main assumption is that depriving people of the space to act is depriving them of reality. Through this study, the aim is not only to revisit a precedent, but to show how architectural projects can once again become instruments of civic governance, thereby allowing people to (re)claim reality.
Immersion in the dominant production frameworks of the city reveals their limits: under the influence of speculative logics and capital turnover, housing becomes a standardized, commodified product, stripping residents of the ability to act upon their own living spaces. This study focuses on the framework that would allow civil society to actively reinvest in these spaces and, in doing so, influence the quality of housing—both as intimate space and as a foundation of the urban commons.
To envision this framework, mnémo revisits a pioneering model, surprisingly little documented: the Usines Bertheau. Between 1980 and 2000, twelve cooperative housing projects there enabled access to homeownership at 50–80% below market prices, thanks to a few simple levers: affordable land, a driving project initiator, resident-led project management structured as a real estate investment company (SCI) without developers, unfinished units delivered to residents, and long-term collective governance. The industrial character of the existing buildings, treated on a case-by-case basis, gave rise to a strong architectural identity and to pathways with unique atmospheres—a genius loci nurtured by collective intelligence.
The goal is to transmit a culture of inhabiting, interpret its concrete tools, and make them operational in today’s Greater Paris context, for both policymakers and residents.
The main assumption is that depriving people of the space to act is depriving them of reality. Through this study, the aim is not only to revisit a precedent, but to show how architectural projects can once again become instruments of civic governance, thereby allowing people to (re)claim reality.
THE TEAM
Sirine Ammour
Loris Ellena-Mehl
Pénélope Przybylko
Faced with an amnesic and standardized city, mnémo asserts living memory as a political resource for crafting alternative pathways.The collective is united by a shared enthusiasm for the Usines Bertheau, a symbol of a generous and diverse living environment. More than a successful transformation project, this place becomes a tangible proof: another form of housing governance is possible.
We believe that architecture begins before drawing, with the collection of intimate and collective stories, and with the analysis of the invisible structures, both legal and human, that shape the urban fabric.
mnémo embodies this work of active memory: archiving the past to equip the future.
Sirine Ammour
Loris Ellena-Mehl
Pénélope Przybylko
Faced with an amnesic and standardized city, mnémo asserts living memory as a political resource for crafting alternative pathways.The collective is united by a shared enthusiasm for the Usines Bertheau, a symbol of a generous and diverse living environment. More than a successful transformation project, this place becomes a tangible proof: another form of housing governance is possible.
We believe that architecture begins before drawing, with the collection of intimate and collective stories, and with the analysis of the invisible structures, both legal and human, that shape the urban fabric.
mnémo embodies this work of active memory: archiving the past to equip the future.
