Methodology

Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) approaches have several definitions and bring with them their own metrics for success. The RIBA and BRE methods are based on the SMART format: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. In general, these frameworks are suited to studies of contemporary projects where a design team has a greater remit over the measured feedback of a building’s development. In the majority of cases these methodologies aim to be quantitative in measuring success. In the case of Briey, however, with its long history of unplanned changes through varying agendas and alternate users, a more flexible, phenomenological and participatory methodology has been adopted. Qualitative findings make greater allowances for addressing resident feedback, permitting broader comparisons and a more holistic understanding of the maturation of the project.

1. Archival and library research, addressing the historical, architectural and socioeconomic contexts of Le Corbusier’s practice, the Unité and Briey

Photographic records of the construction process, combined with written documentation and drawings, shed some light on the context and original intentions for a Unité with more communal facilities than we see today. This documentation also reflected the health of the economy at the time and some of the optimism behind its creation, evidenced in newspaper articles and records of the social diversity present in its earliest population.

2. Systematic photographic surveys assessing the architectural and interior modifications by residents, including the stairways, communal spaces and building envelope

Photographic investigations explore the traces of previous occupation and hope to uncover the history and important clues in understanding Briey. The photography undertaken ranges from systematic documentation of alterations to the staircases in each of the apartments to more adaptive records dependant on the individual’s interior configuration (20–2).

20 Various interior details document the memories: the imprints of a lost wall on the vinyl flooring and layers of paint on a ceiling revealing the removal of interior partitions.

21 A photographic study of the Unité’s original Le Corbusier stairs.

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#3 #2

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#5 #6

22 A critical view of apartments: #1: a pared back interior revealing the original concrete structure; #2: an apartment fitted with elements found around the building; #3: detail of a partition wall separating a space into two distinct areas, planned using the animation and game design software Blender; #4: a living space that reflects the transitory DJ lifestyle of the owner; #5: an apartment designed around a view from the top floor of the building; #6: a diverse live/work space, incorporating a plant nursery, carpentry studio, beekeeper’s workshop and a living space featuring handmade furniture.

3. Resident interviews and documentary drawing

As part of a larger study of Le Corbusier’s work, this project looks at Briey from multiple perspectives. Given its long history, it has been necessary to engage with its current inhabitants through their stories and physical adaptations, the local socioeconomic context, the building in the historical context of its more popular siblings, programmatic alterations to the building’s fabric and other material. The study has been conducted over a four-year period, producing four informative interviews and an array of documentary study drawings that track the extent of the physical adaptations made to the building’s framework (23–9). No one perspective is considered to be as summarily effective as an approach to addressing the questions. This method is in line with approaches and objectives of participant-observer studies. The task of gathering a sufficient range of resident participants is ongoing and further research with a much broader and more demographically representative base of the Unité’s inhabitants is necessary.

In addition, this project involves the author’s personal reading as a participantobserver of Briey and its multifaceted adaptations. Weber’s visual observations and the interview-based responses that he collected from the building’s present inhabitants have formed the basis of a dual reflective journey. This journey has tracked a gradual shift: from appreciating the supposed ‘failure’ of the project in regard to Le Corbusier’s doctrine to its unplanned success through its unpredicted adaptation and diversity of inhabitation and community. Many of these changes have been undertaken by the residents themselves and reflect varied levels of skill. In turn the success of housing design has been understood as a two-stage process, with creative adaptation forming the second stage, following the architect’s original design.

23 Drawing of one of the apartments with the original elements designed by Le Corbusier indicated in yellow.

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24 View of alterations in apartment 113.

25 This taxonomy shows the range of alterations in apartment 113, from left to right: pink = original doors; orange = kitchen units; green = seating/soft furnishings; olive = tables/ storage; orange = lighting; blue = small storage units.

26–9 (overleaf) Axonometric study of apartment 2, based on original drawings and photographs. Its occupant, Pascal Schoening, collected found Le Corbusier fittings, including doors and a roof of an abandoned kiosk, using them to create an arrangement of spaces, walls and partitions.

4. Community response through the installation of an exhibition

The exhibition A Register of Adaptations took place in two spaces in apartment 17, which is currently uninhabited. In the first space, two large wall-mounted drawings were presented. One was an axonometric drawing representing the building as a whole, including its original fixtures and fittings, stairs, kitchens, built-in furniture and sliding walls (34); the second specifically addressed apartment 2 – the flat of Pascal Schoening – and how it had been altered, adapted and filled with personal belongings to embody a very different way of living within the context of the Unité (26–9). At the centre of the space was a table displaying all of the study’s drawings in the form of two books: Volume One documented the history of the Unité; Volume Two contained axonometric drawings of each of the original apartments as shells without the Le Corbusier fixtures and fittings. The residents were encouraged to explore their spaces and reflect on how they had adapted them; however, only two of the residents were persuaded to do so. It appeared that drawing in a book, the act of updating a printed document, proved to be more intimidating than changing a national monument (30).

The second space of the apartment/ gallery had a workshop set up. The intention was to allow visitors to draw the way they would like to live in the Unité. Some external visitors – adults and children – took the opportunity to draw the different ways that they would like to see their lives playing out within these spaces. The drawings were then displayed on the walls. Architects generally do not get the opportunity to revisit and re-evaluate their built projects through the adaptations of their building’s inhabitants. In this regard, the drawing documentation intends to present a record of the various physical alterations against the expression of the more resilient aspects of the Unité.

30 Briey’s residents were encouraged to illustrate a book, indicating previously made and intended future adaptations to their apartments.

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31–3 (overleaf) The exhibition’s visitors were encouraged to explore how the spaces could be adapted.

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34 Axonometric study outlining the original layout of the building, its apartments and built-in furniture fittings.

35 Axonometric study and books on display at the exhibition.