Mediatheque Centre Paris Part 1 Project 2002 Oliver Wood University of Portsmouth | UK This project explores the creation of a mediathque in the heart of Paris. The quest for an improved standard of living within the community. The design is both intellectual and complex in the combination and creation of residential dwellings and open public space.Public and private space overlap to create a journey through the urban fabric of Paris, culminating at the primary nodal point of my design. This nodal point occupies the teminos level of my project; the elevated garden, it is this garden that captures and frames views of the dense urban fabric of Paris. The teminos level is also the dividing factor in extracting the private residential units from the mass of the mediathque.Achieving a high level of quality living space whilst maintaining a high density of units was fundamental to the project. My urban dwellings were a complex order of interlocking units, providing five different unit types from single occupancy flats to duplex systems to larger more generous three bedroom apartments. The quality of living within the scheme was greatly improved by providing individual open spaces for each occupancy, and also a plentiful amount of semi-private communal space.This project conforms with the exploration of regeneration within the urban fabric of the city. Providing a high-density mixed use development, with particular emphasis placed on the quality of the external environment. General:The project called for the design of complex mixed use building in strong urban setting. The scheme demonstrated the manner in which a city context informed the architectural proposition and the strong symbiotic relationship of built form and urban context. Emphasis was placed on the quality of the external environment with part of the brief to design an open space that related to the urban intervention, and particular importance made of the integration of semi-public spaces within the scheme. In particular:Oliver's s project not only addressed these issues, but made a sophisticated scheme integrating a variety of public open spaces which contributed towards the public realm of the area. The scheme made ingenious use of routes through the city and then seamlessly brought these into the building proposal with refined progression form very public to very private spaces. The use of intricate three-dimensional juxtaposition of the dwelling units investigated the important ideas of repletion and individuality in large-scale housing design.