A 19th Century Paris Apartment Building Gets a Two-Level Addition Crowned by a Terraced Garden

Designed by Rotunno Justman Architects, the rooftop space helps to keep the apartment cool during the summer and stores stormwater runoff.

May 10, 2022 - 07:17

A 19th Century Paris Apartment Building Gets a Two-Level Addition Crowned by a Terraced Garden

Designed by Rotunno Justman Architects, the rooftop space helps to keep the apartment cool during the summer and stores stormwater runoff.

An unassuming apartment building in Paris’s sprawling 15th Arrondissement hides a secret: a terraced rooftop garden with undulating plant beds that run down two levels like a pastoral hillside. From here, you can hear the faint hum of everyday sounds of the city—moving traffic and pedestrian voices—along with the buzz of bees and other bits of wildlife taking refuge in the urban greenery.

Paris firm Rotunno Justman added two levels and a rooftop garden to one of the city’s 19th-century residential buildings. "It’s a private roof, but we wanted to make sure other people enjoy looking at it, too," Rotunno says.
Photo: Hervé Abbadie

The garden belongs to the top unit in what had been a three-level residential building until its owner—Eric Justman, an architect and the former publisher of design magazine Architectures à Vivre— added two new levels, each with a 645-square-foot apartment.

"The idea was to respect the existing building and the context, but also go in a new direction," architect Ary Justman says.
Photo: Hervé Abbadie

He tapped his son, Ary Justman, and Maria-Giulia Rotunno, cofounders of Paris firm Rotunno Justman, to design them. "He gave us a budget and said he wanted extraordinary architecture," says Ary, who now rents the two-bedroom on the top level.