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.

The old Brest post office had a hearty footprint and prime location, but had phased out operations over the years. Seeking to make better use of the building, in 2018, La Poste Immobilier, the real-estate arm of the French postal service, put out a call to developers. Paris developer Acapace won the contract and in turn enlisted Chatillon to help convert the 63,000-square-foot building into an ambitious 93-unit senior housing project. Founded by François Chatillon in 1986, the firm specializes in transforming existing structures. “The first thing we try to understand is what we have with regards to the city, the architecture, the construction, the spaces, the orientation—everything, really,” Simon Chatillon, the project’s chief architect, says of the family-led firm’s research-driven approach.

After several extensive feasibility studies, the architects concluded that the upper floors of the U-shaped building could serve as apartments. This would allow residents to live in stand-alone units, each with a kitchen and bathroom, rather than a nursing home, the most common type of senior accommodation in Brest. Excited about the structure’s potential, Simon recalls, “In some ways, it was perfectly designed to be reused. The building has beams between every window and no columns inside.” This flexibility allowed the architects to navigate dual considerations of an apartment conversion—such as the existing structure’s ceiling height—and senior housing, including how residents with reduced mobility could navigate the space. At the same time, the building’s design offered unique opportunities. A gift Simon calls attention to are the large windows, which offer residents natural light and views of the city’s central street and plaza: “If we were to do the same in a new building, no developer would pay for them.”

Early in the design process, it became apparent that the existing structure wasn’t large enough to accommodate the planned number of apartments. So the architects designed a new wing, which, over four floors and 13,000 square feet, would connect both ends of the U building. Simon began to think about how to create something both contemporary and cohesive, saying of his thought process, “We have a very rational concrete building that is based on a grid, so why not continue that way?” This sense of design continuity—along with budget constraints—made concrete a clear choice for the new wing. “It’s very efficient in terms of structure,” Simon notes, adding, “It’s also cost-efficient, and when we use it in an intelligent way, we are able to significantly reduce waste.”

While the old post office’s original granite-and-concrete facade is still visible from the central square, Chatillon’s transformation is unmistakable. One street over, a former passageway for mail trucks now serves as a towering entryway to the complex. Using the scale of the building, the wood-clad entrance helps to create a sense of distance between the street and the residence, as well as offering a view of the building’s new wing. The structural addition sits on six pillars, visible from the ground floor through large glass windows that provide sight lines from the lobby through to a landscaped courtyard and further communal spaces. A wall of glass bricks on the new wing overlooking the entryway shimmers in the sun, offering privacy and natural light to residents from the inside. On the other side of the lobby in the enclosed garden—one of three landscaped spaces—more wood cladding wraps portions of the balconies, softening the matter-of-factness of the granite-and-concrete facade that Chatillon had to work with. “It’s almost a city within the city,” as Simon sees it, one in which residents have autonomy in their apartments and a neighborhood-like feel within the residence itself.

“This glass-brick facade is an answer to the old one. It’s in dialogue with it.”
—Simon Chatillon, architect

Following two years of construction, Les Jardins d’Arcadie was inaugurated in December 2024, and it is now fully operational and nearing capacity, with apartments ranging from studios to two-bedrooms. In an homage to the greater Brittany region’s connection to the water, decorations throughout the warm communal areas along the ground floor feature an ocean motif. Surrounding an outdoor patio in the center of the complex, a large dining room transitions into a library and multipurpose space, which features regular programming, from talks with local historians to art classes. From there, residents have access to a gym, which is specialized for physical therapy sessions, as well as a hair salon—a favorite, notes the property’s director, Christelle Lazennec. It was these amenities and location in the city center that drew Suzanne Moal, a sprightly 93-year-old, to move here.

After accompanying one of her friends to visit the residence, Suzanne, who previously lived nearby in Brest, was impressed. “I told my eldest daughter, ‘It’s a dream life there,’ ” she says. After an injury landed her in a rehabilitation center for a month, Suzanne decided to return to Les Jardins d’Arcadie, this time as a resident. “We feel protected here,” she emphasizes, noting the unique balance of community and autonomy. “Everyone is able to do their own thing and make their apartment their own.” As she shows us the balcony off of her living room, which overlooks the courtyard below, she gets a call—the table she ordered has just been delivered.

For Simon, the old Brest post office marks an exciting new chapter for the firm. Chatillon, he explains, “has always taken a contemporary approach to restoring buildings. When I started at the office I felt aligned with my father’s vision, and I was thinking that it could grow beyond just restoration projects.” Combining renovation and extension, he adds, “it’s transformation in a way.” While hesitant to make any pronouncements about adaptive reuse as the panacea for housing shortages, Simon feels that every building has potential. “We could have imagined a geometrical design for the new wing,” he explains, but instead drew on the lessons of the original structure, creating something that could be readapted down the line. “From my point of view, good architecture can be reused.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Chatillon Architectes / @chatillonarchitectes

Structural and Civil Engineering: Sobretec

Landscape Design: A3 Paysage

Interior Design: Flamant Interior Design / @flamantinteriordesign

Quality Engineering: Groupe Qualiconsult

Sustainability Consultant: ELAN

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