Les Étoiles D’Ivry / Jean Renaudie + Renée Gailhoustet

Architects: Jean Renaudie, Renée Gailhoustet
Year: 1975
Photographs: Lorenzo Zandri, Robert Doisneau, Anthony Saroufim, Marc Pataut, Vincent Fillon, Michelle Courteau, Modarchitecture, Federico Novaro, Guilhem Vellut, FRAC Collection Archive, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui
City: Ivry-sur-Seine
Country: France

Les Étoiles d’Ivry residential complex, designed by Jean Renaudie in collaboration with Renée Gailhoustet in Ivry-sur-Seine and completed between 1969 and 1975, redefined postwar social housing by rejecting the slab-and-tower typology in favor of an irregular, modular geometry based on triangles and octagons. The project integrates 40 social housing units with commercial and office spaces, enabling overlapping volumes, staggered terraces, and diverse circulation routes that break down rigid separations between public and private space. Each apartment includes a planted terrace, extending domestic space into the built landscape and introducing nature into daily life. Circulation is organized through interconnected ramps, platforms, and walkways that activate vertical movement and support spontaneous social encounters. Often categorized as Brutalist, the project resists that definition through its open structure and active urban engagement. While maintenance remains a challenge, the complex continues to function as a socially and spatially ambitious model for mixed-use housing.

Les étoiles d’ivry / jean renaudie + renée gailhoustet | classics on architecture lab

Les Étoiles d’Ivry, designed by Jean Renaudie in collaboration with Renée Gailhoustet between 1969 and 1975, remains a significant experiment in postwar social housing. Realized as part of the Opération Jeanne-Hachette in Ivry-sur-Seine, the project offers an alternative to prevailing housing models of the era, such as the slab-and-tower configuration. It combines 40 social housing units with office and retail functions in a composition that redefines the relationship between architecture, urbanism, and the natural environment.

The project’s distinctive star-shaped geometry, from which it takes its name, rejects the orthogonal logic typical of classical modernism. Instead of relying on regular grids and fixed alignments, the buildings are organized through triangular and octagonal modules. Renaudie employed the triangle, while Gailhoustet explored the octagon in adjacent developments—both moving away from right angles to form a spatial field that is irregular yet rigorously structured. This geometric approach allows for overlapping apartments, stepped terraces, and varied paths of circulation.

Each dwelling includes a planted terrace that extends private space into the broader landscape. Vegetation climbs across concrete surfaces, softening the materiality commonly associated with brutalism. These garden-terraces act not only as aesthetic elements but as spatial devices, expanding usable space, creating buffers for privacy, and fostering neighborly interactions. Circulation within the complex is designed to blur the boundaries between public and private. Ramps, walkways, and corridors interconnect residential, commercial, and office areas without rigid separations. These transitional zones encourage informal encounters and shared use. Verticality is used to full effect; platforms, terraces, and rooftops contribute to pedestrian movement and visual continuity throughout the site.

Although often labeled as brutalist, the project’s structural looseness and its social ambition challenge that categorization. Unlike earlier concrete housing models that emphasized monumental autonomy, Les Étoiles responds to its urban context. Its articulation at street level, mixed-use program, and formal complexity contribute to a dynamic urban structure.

Decades after completion, the complex retains architectural and social relevance. Some commercial areas and transitional spaces have experienced decline, and ongoing maintenance is hindered by limited public funding. Nevertheless, the project continues to support social interaction through its interconnected gardens and shared areas. Les Étoiles d’Ivry stands as a rare and ambitious effort to encapsulate urban complexity within a single architectural form. Its importance lies in its resistance to typological standardization and in its vision of architecture as an active framework for everyday life.