Once Made for Mail, It’s Now for Your Golden Years

It’s a coveted sunny afternoon in Brest, a port city in the northwest of France. As lunchtime hits, a stream of local office workers and residents fill the city’s central square, Place de la Liberté. Overlooking the Rue de Siam leading up to the square is the old Brest post office, an imposing granite-clad postwar building that once served as headquarters to the region’s mail service. Today, though, following an €8.5 million renovation designed by Paris firm Chatillon Architectes, this former office building has been transformed into Les Jardins d’Arcadie, a light-filled, community-oriented senior residence and a testament to the potential of adaptive reuse.