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Long before he moved into the historic building, Dutch architect Felix Claus admired 51 rue Raynouard, an apartment block in the Passy district of Paris designed and built in 1932 by Auguste Perret. One of the seminal architects of the 20th century, Perret is renowned for high-profile commissions like the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the post–Second World War rebuild of Le Havre, and for his pioneering use of reinforced concrete. He constructed 51 rue Raynouard to house the design firm he ran with his two brothers and created a 1,830-square-foot apartment on the seventh floor for himself and his wife. Here, the apartment’s balcony offers an impressive view of rue Raynouard.

The geometric addition, with its cedar rain screen, is joined at the hip with the more traditional residence.

During the historical review period of the permitting process, Curtiss learned the house was previously owned by three generations of the same family — a fact that deeply informed how she approached the remodel. “We wanted [the family] to drive by and feel like, ‘Oh cool, look what they did to our old house,’” she said, explaining her decision to preserve the house’s original shape. As a reminder of its previous life, workers sandblasted the original floorplate and left it exposed to reveal “the history of little conduit holes drilled before.” They also utilized old framing members when molding the concrete retaining walls in the yard, literally “imprinting the building’s history into the walkways.”

Find out how Passive House standards are being integrated into affordable housing projects in the United States.