Village Vertical - Rosny-sous-Bois - Webflow Ecommerce Website Template

Village Vertical / urban mixed-use

[Summary]

Vertical neighbourhoods organised by cluster / social contact without loss of privacy.

[Team]

Sou Fujimoto + Nicolas Laisné + Dimitri Roussel + Atelier Georges + La Compagnie de Phalsbourg + REI Habitat

[Temporal Arc]

Immediate (biophilic contact at every floor) · Circadian (daylight + sport across the day) · Chronic (community identity over years)

[Direction of Effect]

ENCOUNTER (community at height) · ACTIVATE (sport and social) · RESTORE (biophilic contact)

[Neural Tags]

B4 = Vertical biophilic continuity · S1 = Social contact activation · B3 = Biophilic volume · A3 = Acoustic comfort zone

[Biological System]

Autonomic regulation · Molecular signalling (serotonin, endorphins) · Allostasis · Neuroplasticity

[Description]

A NEW HORIZON FOR THE METROPOLIS The project intends to transform this apparent 'in-between' into a new heart of the city, addressing everyone. The building begins by hollowing out: a new public space, broadly open onto the surroundings of the site and at the same time clearly identified. On either side of this 'hearth', the vibrant activities of the project - sport and play, catering and shops - frame this square dedicated to sharing and expression: a new pulse intended to irrigate the future Rosny and the Metropolis. The project offers a genuine new response to the question of densification.Village Vertical is the 1st place winner of Inventons la Métropole du Grand Paris in Rosny-sous-Bois - a 28,200 m2 mixed-use complex designed by Sou Fujimoto Atelier Paris with Nicolas Laisné and Dimitri Roussel, developed by La Compagnie de Phalsbourg and REI Habitat, with Atelier Georges (landscape and urban prefiguration). The 120-metre long timber structure rises to 50 metres, mediating between the domestic scale of the existing neighbourhood and the metropolitan scale of the adjacent retail complex. The programme integrates 17,000 m2 of housing (including 5,000 m2 social), 5,300 m2 of offices, a sports hub (climbing wall, urban football, padel), and 6,000 m2 of shared community spaces. Engineers: Terao · Elioth · Barabanel · Casso & Associés · APAVE · Ascaudit · Méta Acoustique · Citec. Cancelled June 2020 following developer withdrawal post-Covid. BfNA reading: this project is understood as a case study in movement, orientation, accessibility, safety, social mixing and collective behaviour. It extends beyond architectural production into environmental intelligence / how design decisions can support human adaptation, social responsibility, ecological performance and future evidence-based practice.

[Key Figures]

Typology: urban mixed-use · 2017-2019 · 28,200 m2 · 17,000 m2 housing (5,000 m2 social) · 5,300 m2 offices · 6,000 m2 community spaces · Height: 50 m · Length: 120 m · Timber + concrete · Cancelled: letter from mayor, 17 June 2020

[Neural Analysis]

VERTICAL SOCIALITY: Terraces and shared voids are treated as neural interfaces between solitude and contact, supporting social reward while preserving retreat.

VERTICAL VILLAGE [B4][S1]: Proximity micro-communities created by vertical stacking reduce commuting (MacKerron & Mourato, 2013) and increase social contact frequency. Elzeyadi (2011): 10% nature contact reduces absences 11%; nature-view residents take 57 hrs sick leave/yr vs 68 hrs without. TIMBER [A3]: Structural timber inherently absorbs acoustic energy; RT reduced toward 40-55 dB optimal zone for cognitive work (BMC Public Health, 2025). BIOPHILIC TERRACES [B2]: Each floor includes cascading balcony gardens; Yin et al. (2020) show physiological stress recovery within 4 min of biophilic exposure. THERMAL [T1]: Timber structure provides thermal mass; stable temperatures maintain cognitive performance - Allen et al. (2016) confirm CO2 + VOC control improves cognition 15-50%. VERTICAL COMMUNITY & PHYSICAL HEALTH: Elzeyadi (2011, HERD): 10% increase in nature contact reduces absenteeism 11%; nature-view residents take 57 vs 68 hrs sick leave annually. Village Vertical stacks community vertically - each floor cluster creates a neighbourhood at height. Sports programme (climbing, football, paddle): physical exercise is the strongest single neural antidepressant (Blumenthal et al., 2007, Psychosom. Med.: exercise equally effective as sertraline for major depression). BfNA neural-sciences lens: the relevant question is not only how the project looks, but how it conditions movement, orientation, accessibility, safety, social mixing and collective behaviour over time, across different bodies, neurotypes and social realities.

[Social Impact]

SOCIAL: Density is organised around shared gardens and communal visibility instead of anonymous stacking.

[ROI Sustainability]

ROI: Socially legible density can increase liveability, identity and long-term residential desirability.

ROI: 1st place in Inventons la Métropole - the most visible Grand Paris development competition. Timber structure: 13,000 m3 wood sequesters 10,000 t CO2 (mayor's own figure) - equivalent to 200 ha of forest. SUSTAINABILITY: Timber = 10,000 t CO2 stored; equivalent to removing 2,800 cars from circulation for 1 year, or 15 years of gas heating for 1,000 households. TIMBER ECONOMICS: 13,000 m3 cross-laminated timber sequesters ~11,700 t CO2 (EPD Kaindl Austria, 2022). CLT construction reduces site time 30-40% vs concrete. Grand Paris Express station (500 m) ensures transit connectivity without car dependency. ESG / investment lens: the value of this project is not limited to carbon or certification. It includes public value, climate adaptation, inclusion and civic resilience, producing evidence that can inform investors, public actors, operators and future environmental standards.

[Applied R&D Lens]

Observe terrace use, neighbour recognition, sound exposure and perceived privacy across vertical levels.

Village Vertical creates a social neuroscience experiment at unprecedented residential scale: 8-12 dwelling units per floor cluster, each forming a micro-community. BfNA's Applied R&D would track social contact frequency within floor clusters versus between floors, correlating proximity design with oxytocin levels, loneliness indicators, and depression screening scores across the residential population. The sports programme - climbing wall, urban football, padel - adds the most powerful neural antidepressant variable: exercise equivalence to sertraline for major depression. The only residential project in this portfolio with a physical programme explicitly designed to activate neurochemical recovery at building scale.Future data layer: deployed through BfNA, the project could become a longitudinal dataset linking environmental conditions, behavioural patterns, social outcomes and ecological performance / transforming built space into knowledge for future design.

Citations:

Sources: Elzeyadi (2011) HERD nature/absenteeism · Blumenthal et al. (2007) Psychosom. Med. exercise/depression · MacKerron & Mourato (2013) Psychol. Sci. · EPD Kaindl Austria (2022) CLT carbon. · Environmental social neuroscience; Grasso-Cladera et al. 2025; housing and social cohesion studies.

Project Credits: Sou Fujimoto Atelier Paris + Nicolas Laisné + Dimitri Roussel; Team: Sou Fujimoto + Nicolas Laisné + Dimitri Roussel + Atelier Georges + La Compagnie de Phalsbourg + REI Habitat.Laura Role: Laura Ulloa - Project Leader / lead responsibility where documented in CV, office records or project archive.Image Credits: © Sou Fujimoto Atelier Paris + Nicolas Laisn.Source: https://sou-fujimoto.net / https://www.archdaily.com/892748/sou-fujimoto-nicolas-laisne-and-dimitri-roussel-to-build-28000-sqm-village-vertical-in-grand-paris.Project Credits & Copyright Notice: Every effort has been made to identify and acknowledge architects, consultants, collaborators, photographers, visualisation studios and other contributors associated with each project. Project descriptions have been rewritten and curated by Bureau for Neural Architecture (BfNA). Architectural works, photographs, renderings, drawings, trademarks and visual material remain the property of their respective authors, studios, photographers, visualisation teams and rights holders. Contributors are credited wherever information is available. Rights remain with their respective authors and rights holders.