Infinity home
Infinity Home
A new housing model in the age of hybrid environments
This research was awarded the Grand Prize of the Le Monde Smart Cities European Innovation Awards in April 2017.
(Read the article in Le Monde)
Video presentation of Infinity Home (French with English subtitles)
Type Foresight research on housing
Theme Shared housing, active buildings and hybrid environments
Timeline Studies 2015–2017
Funding EPA Marne and Caisse des Dépôts as part of the Ecocité 2 – City of Tomorrow programme
Arkhenspaces Team Directed by Éric Cassar with Nicolas Moulin (architect), Tinhinan Laoubi, Osama Abou Samra, Namyong Kim, Marine Lardé, Mohamed Ali S’habou, Léa Vincent, Valentina Bonuglia and Andrea Salaberri
Digital Partner I-Porta
General principles
In response to changing lifestyles, evolving family structures and growing ecological, economic and demographic challenges, this research explores new ways of dwelling.
Infinity Home proposes an intergenerational shared housing model that is neither participatory housing nor communal living. It is based on a controlled reduction of the private sphere in favour of a wide variety of shared spaces accessible according to needs, desires, schedules and uses.
Its ambition is twofold: to improve quality of life while optimising built resources and strengthening social connections.
Living more with less
The research starts from a simple observation: a large proportion of built space remains underused, while people’s needs continuously evolve throughout the day, the week and their lives.
Through a better organisation of sharing, the mutualisation of certain functions and the support of digital tools, Infinity Home enables access to more spaces, services and opportunities without necessarily building more.
The living environment is no longer limited to the boundaries of the private dwelling but extends to an entire inhabited ecosystem.
From m² to m².h
This research introduces a new way of understanding the value of housing.
Rather than measuring value solely through square metres, it proposes considering access to spaces over time: the m².h (square metre-hour).
Residents can benefit from a diversity of spaces adapted to different activities while optimising the actual occupancy of places.
This approach simultaneously enhances quality of use, spatial efficiency and constructive sobriety.
Physical architecture and digital architecture
The arrival of digital technologies within buildings opens new possibilities for organisation, sharing and coordination.
Infinity Home explores the interactions between physical and digital architecture in order to simplify access to spaces, facilitate mutual support and develop new services.
This approach takes shape through a digital compass capable of guiding residents towards spaces, activities, resources or encounters corresponding to their needs, desires or current situations.
Digital technology is not simply added to architecture; it intertwines with it, expanding its field of action.
From the building to the active urban block
Open to its neighbourhood and the wider city, the residential complex becomes an active urban block.
It is no longer merely a consumer of resources but also a producer of services, relationships, solidarities and opportunities.
This vision represents one of the earliest formulations of the research later developed by Arkhenspaces around the Active Block, active buildings and hybrid environments.
A foundational research project
Infinity Home is one of the founding research projects through which Arkhenspaces explored the relationships between physical and digital architecture, uses, temporalities and new forms of local cooperation.
The project investigates how a better coordination of spaces over time, combined with simple digital tools, can facilitate mutual support, foster a contributive and solidarity-based economy and multiply synergies between residents, services and local resources.
This approach seeks to offer greater possibilities to everyone: spaces for calm, solitude or concentration when desired, as well as opportunities for encounters, shared activities and collective initiatives whenever they are wished for.
By optimising the use of spaces rather than multiplying their construction, Infinity Home also proposes an ecological response based on sobriety, mutualisation and a more efficient use of existing resources.
Living differently
Presentation of Infinity Home (13 min) followed by a discussion with Michel Maffesoli and Caroline Rémy at Leonard:Paris in July 2018 [FR]
Infinity Home: a new housing model within an active building
Lecture at IRI (40 min)
(Institute for Research and Innovation) – Centre Pompidou – 2018
Infinity Home: 1000 m² dwellings / From m² to m².h
Read the article
published in Chroniques d’Architecture in 2023
Infinity Home means multiplying possibilities while building less.
This research continues today through the development of the Active Block and active buildings. It opens perspectives and applications that are only partially presented here.