Murs Solaires
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The Biennale d’architecture et de paysage (Versailles 2025) asks how we can learn from the architectures of the global south to confront rising temperatures as a result of climate change in an unprepared built environment such as Ile-de-France.
While many might resort to mechanized systems of comfort, the emissions produced by those artificial environments only compound the problem. The elemental technology of architectural typologies from places like Peru address thermodynamic conditions that could be redeployed as passive strategies in France.
We are interested in engaging with this provocation by speculating on how such principles could reappear in a western context. Observing the party walls of Haussmann-era Paris, one finds chimneys once vital for winter heating, now obsolete.
The research project investigates vernacular typologies informing architecture. The Peruvian teatina, a colonial-era vertical extrusion channeling light and air into introverted floorplans, leverages stack effect ventilation.
Redeploying this principle to Paris, I propose an architectural artefact to retrofit Haussmannian party walls, enhancing solar radiation and buoyant airflow through existing chimneys. This grafted device resignifies chimneys as passive cooling strategies, addressing the city’s increasingly hot summers.
