When the French architect Renée Gailhoustet died in 2023, the residents of Le Liégat, a social housing block she completed in 1982, put up a large handmade sign saying: “Merci Renée.” Architects are often accused of designing impersonal rabbit hutches that they themselves would never deign to inhabit, but when Gailhoustet died at the age of 93, she had been living in her Liégat duplex in the Parisian suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine for more than 40 years.
Outside her living room window, several storeys up, was a large cherry tree and a profusion of greenery. Characterised by their riotous informality, Gailhoustet’s free-plan apartment blocks invariably featured cascading terraces and loggias covered with a foot of soil, so residents could cultivate and enjoy un jardin derrière, a back garden.
