Our wish was, as is custom when erecting a public building, to symbolically materialise the public body. The design of the cities official buildings has always featured a grand staircase.

We thus envisioned this staircase surrounded by a warm material, serving all the services. Its width gives it a special aspect. It irrigates, gives it rhythm, and filters all the exchanges.

The western stairwell goes up along a traditional and virtual library, embodying the presentation of paper and of IT works. It imparts the Science and Industry Library its dense axe, strongly stamping its identity whilst freeing space around it for new activities.

The Cahors cinema complex project is a « flagship project, the culmination of a strategy to regain the city centre». This multiplex must be like a tower for all to see, detectible from the amphitheatre-shaped surrounding hills. As a lever for structuring the city, it links closer the Bessières and Charles de Gaulle squares. It gives them palpable limits, the first closed, intimate, linking to public activities, while the other is wider, urban, and open to the boulevard, to the city. This multiplex is a vast airlock, a porch between two atmospheres. 

The architecture suggested here encourages intellectual independence and exchanges, by pointing out a refined monolith placed above collective spaces. Interstitial voids are created when these two blocks come together. Materialised by large openings extending to the upper and lower levels, these voids are places meant for living, meeting, for introspection or projection. 

Doing anew a mixed development building: a student residence and housings in the ACACIA eco-district in the higher parts of the Montreuil town.

This project twists the traditional architectural codes for theatres and opera houses, by reversing the upward movement usually imposed by a large ceremonial staircase. Here, the spectators use descending steps that allow them to gain depth and verticality, in a double movement of dilation of space and time. In successive stages, the central steps act as a decompression chamber, a moment of mental conditioning for the audience, who gradually leave the effervescence of the common foyer to join the quiet and hushed atmosphere of the main hall.

How to ventilate naturally without suffering the annoying noise effects from a ring road?
How to enjoy the view of the Seine while providing pleasant living conditions? A protective space must be put in place to ensure an effective protection. Thus, the question of a kind of double skin arises, to act as a protective envelope.

The aim was to design and produce a sales corner in the Printemps Homme department store in Paris for the resumption and development of a new line. This involves the creation of white lacquered steel furniture, and low section clothing doors on storage boxes with invisible openings. It will all be designed in collaboration with a contemporary artist working with an in-situ workshop company.

Heavy restructuring and transformation of the former granaries of the Magasins Généraux into offices. Creation of an open atrium with a glass roof in the heart of the building. Accompanying work in the new organisation. Time was of the essence, the completion of the 4,500 m² work was done in 11 months, including studies and construction under public contract.

The whole idea is inspired by the model of farms or that of large religious buildings. Farmhouses or abbeys have shaped this territory, and the two are historically linked. Their forms, organised around cloisters, around walled and pleasure gardens, and around work yards, respond to the need to keep outdoor spaces protected from the elements. This media library is also intended to be a place of sharing, of communion around the awakening. Our roof will be built in one piece with a traditional frame and covered with terracotta tiles. We want to integrate the building discreetly, using traditional materials, but in a radically contemporary construction, attentive to the use of «real» materials. A double-pitched roof allows the technical components to be hidden and to join the existing buildings.

Paris region, like an «island» in the heart of the infrastructural limits: trains, RER suburbs train lines and motorways. This proximity to the railway presents a disadvantage on the first three levels, since it induces a recess that eliminates views to the north-east, but the use of its garden cover on level 4 makes it an important asset.

Our proposal deviates somewhat from the rules, as we propose an additional threshold. A footbridge, positioned at the axis between the two programmatic entities, makes up our project. Like a path, this pier plays the role of a distributive alley between the two volumes. This footbridge is established as an extension of the suspended garden, it is visible from the boulevard, but also opens towards La Défense, the Grande Arche, Paris on the horizon, the Mont Valérien, the Seine and the countryside towards the west.

New construction on a vacant lot in the city centre that replaces an open-air car park. Orientation of the project, particularly the accesses to the various facilities, on the short side of the shopping street. The stability of the land was a major constraint, hence the choice of a light structure. We propose a timber frame construction for significant volumetric flexibility. Integration of a covered parking above the ground.

The architectural concept was designed to represent a gradual scaling, through a grand staircase set into the slope. The superimposition of platforms makes it possible to create different types of staircases going up or down, with different widths of steps, belvedere-like projections, or recesses. Visitors can follow their own pace: slow down, speed up, pause, stop. This configuration enables, much like the scenography of the permanent exhibition, to symbolically evoke the stages of the European construction.

The thick rammed earth walls of the media library are excavated-like, unearthed as in an archaeological site. They delimit the open spaces and enclose alcoves dedicated to listening and concentration activities. Fired ceramic slabs using ancient techniques are embedded in the rammed earth walls and are used for the building signage. The roof is designed as a stainless steel «box», mirrored on five sides. Surroundings reflect on it in a changing way, according to where you are and to the light: the roof dilutes itself and merges with the surroundings it reflects, and its outlines disappear. This changing roof refers to the idea of the immateriality of the stored data that is permanently modified.

Septèmes-Les-Vallons is a string of small villages with strong identities that follow one another along a main artery. Our media library project is designed accordingly. It will look like a small hamlet made up of houses and enlivened with public squares. This new «village» will be connected to the other parts of the city by the existing main artery. The hamlet-like media library consists of seven semi-detached volumes and five protected outdoor spaces with specific functions. The number seven, which is the name of the town, becomes the reference for the composition of the volumes: seven volumes hosting seven programmatic functions.

The building is designed as a superposition of several functions, like the combustion stages of a blast furnace. The crucible, the stall, the belly, the tank, and the throat are the many chambers or levels that make up the building. The shops, the gym, the dojo, the dance hall, and the roof tennis courts are built on the same logic: all in superposition and in height!

The present building consists of three parts forming a “U” on a single level, except for two corners in the form of two-storey turrets. The use of the same materials makes the whole architecturally homogeneous. To add nine classrooms to the school, the project creates the necessary surfaces above the existing buildings. A patio is inserted to bring light and warmth into the new courtyard. The construction is designed level per level, the slab of the first floor is a mix of metal and concrete, while all the framework above is in wood. The roof is made of steel trays on wooden beams. The new building is supported on metal posts and is not dependent on the existing structure in any way. The façade is entirely made of wood.

Our idea starts with the fact that “La Ferme du Buisson” (cinema theatre) has lost some parts in its south-eastern side and we propose to perform a “transplant” of a building compatible with the existing ones. In architecture, this addition must meet two requirements. The first is functional and technical, the original part must meet the new regulations and allow for an optimised functioning. The second requirement is formal: the extension must interact with the existing building with altogether continuity, rupture, and opposition. In this case, the extension of the cinema theatre is an opportunity to remodel it into a redefined and soundproofed auditorium, to make circulation more fluid by creating convivial spaces, and on the other hand, to entirely connect these remodelled parts to the new ones. 

The Le Bourget media library interior redesign project consists of identifying the different areas by means of a floor signage. Writings on the furniture and on the lighting fixtures complete the system. The clear concrete floor is designed as a blank page, a support for writing, for text and lettering, echoing book and reading. This thinking makes it possible to lighten the space by avoiding suspended panels or signs. 

The purpose of this facility is to go along the urban renewal of the Emmaus-Saint-Michel district, which is a priority district in the Urban Social Cohesion Contract, and which benefits from social, economic, educational, and cultural development actions for the low-income people that are particularly affected by exclusion. As soon as you enter this project of ours, the globe in the meeting room symbolises the idea of community. The continents represented by a multitude of small mirrors are deliberately inverted to disorientate the users. Around this sphere and around the meeting room are the reception, the activity room, the offices, the library where people meet and exchange. Inside, people meet, make decisions, and move forward. The design of the library is based on the idea of difference: the shelves are of different sizes, depths, and colours.

Our work seeks to express Turnbull & Associés’ business lines, transaction, audit and property management, on a 20 m² stand created for Turnbull & Associés at the SIMI 2009 conference centre. The wood used in the form of timber and battens reflects the act of building. The stacking of the battens represents the phases of storage of the wood in logistic platforms, before the departure for their final destination. Finally, the simple graphics, on a white background, reflect the manufacturing, the logistics and the construction.

The book, namely here the parchment, the scroll, was the starting point for this architectural design. The concrete work in the façade expresses the nobility of the book, read, reread, and constantly studied. The matriculated concrete is moulded to create a stack, like pages that thicken, curl and splay as they are repeatedly consulted. The concrete veil first wraps around the axis, the synagogue, and then embraces it in a second movement. This veil has twelve sides, all of which are joined together.

The child often deals with the idea of flight through play, by making a paper plane. This helps to understand that the shape determines the performance of the object made, in terms of length and flight time. Thus, our production looks like a huge, folded sheet of paper. The folds of this origami of more than 1,000 m² are altogether circulations, access ramps, seats, partitions, reception desk, cloakrooms and altimetric levels. Three routes structure the exhibition space, materialising two relatively autonomous and independent «centres of gravity»: air and space. The manipulations are positioned in accordance with the constraints: «turn around», «cross» and «penetrate».  Other so-called spectacular manipulations punctuate each of the three axes like flagship elements. Visitors are drawn to the centre, the highest level of the exhibition, and are then directed in all other directions.