Publication

Bypassing Developers: An Interview with Plan Común on Self-Commissioned Housing

2025

Abstract

Founded in Chile in 2012, the now Paris-based practice Plan Común has become one of the most interesting practices working in the field of housing today. For years Plan Común has channeled its efforts into ﬁnding commissions and opportunities within an increasingly hostile market for truly affordable housing. In 2023, the practice completed the Maison Commune, a multi-unit residential building characterized by an abundance of collective spaces, located next to the Parisian Cemetery of Pantin. Our interview with Plan Común members Kim Courrèges and Felipe De Ferrari focuses on the details of the Maison Commune’s ﬁnancial scheme. Devised as a “prototype,” this self-commissioned project was an opportunity for Plan Común to conceive a project without traditional intermediaries. By bypassing developers, the architects were able to redirect those costs to build less private and more collective areas—“non-proﬁtable” square meters—that would otherwise not ﬁnd space in a balance sheet. By adapting a system of ﬁnancing used in real estate, Plan Común found the margins to make something meaningful.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/c91e6e30-6209-443d-ac23-c309db4adfdf

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2025

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/c91e6e30-6209-443d-ac23-c309db4adfdf

About this result

Related concepts (16)

Public housing

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of poverty, and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts. In the United States, public housing developments are classified either as housing projects that are owned by a city's Housing authority or federally subsidized public housing operated through HUD.

Multifamily residential

Multifamily residential (also known as multidwelling unit or MDU) is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other (side-by-side units), or stacked on top of each other (top and bottom units). A common form is an apartment building. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.

Real estate

Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as growing crops (eg. timber), minerals or water, and wild animals; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more generally) buildings or housing in general. In terms of law, real is in relation to land property and is different from personal property while estate means the "interest" a person has in that land property.