The Tour Bois-le-Prêtre, standing alongside the périphérique autoroute on the very limits of the city, has recently been transformed from a crumbling outcast to an award-winning structure. Could it show the way forward for high-rise structures around the world?

Last month, architects Anne Lacaton, Jean-Philippe Vassal, and Frédéric Druot picked up the Equerre d’argent 2011, an annual architecture prize awarded by the Moniteur press group. The judges saluted the way that the team had reimagined a structure that was originally built in the 1960s, transforming it from a banal concrete block to a sustainable building that is open to its surroundings and filled with natural light.

The architects’ leitmotif is ‘détruire, c’est gaspiller’ (destruction is waste). For this project, nothing was removed, but 3500m² of space was added to the 100 apartments, mostly by adding ‘winter gardens’ and balconies. For the people living in the tower block – none of whom needed to be rehoused during the work – an additional 20 to 60m was added to their homes. On top of this, heating costs will be drastically reduced and noise pollution from the neighbouring motorway will almost completely disappear.

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