The French duo of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are known for their delicate operations, repurposing neglected structures with apparent ease . Originally published on the website of Harvard Gazette entitled "They build, but modestly" this article relates the lessons that offers students in a recent lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
around 1980, two young architects have completed training in Bordeaux, France, and moved to Nigeria. In remote areas of this African nation, they were inspired by the simple structures they saw amid the harsh, beautiful desert landscapes. The houses were open to the air, had utilities thatched roofs and were made with pieces of local wood. Modesty prevailed in the structures that are also invited Beauty
The lessons of construction in Africa remained with Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal in their practice, based in Paris, Lacaton & Vassal:. Use what is there, keep it simple, kiss the air, and the light of the honor, freedom and grace. They practice social architecture-based economy, modesty and beauty found environments.
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"Africa was probably our second school" after Bordeaux, said Vassal. While in Nigeria, they worked on planning city and went to amaze indigenous construction practices. "He [was] a fantastic freedom to live."
Their belief in social architecture, shaded by a sense of African ingenuity and economy, now embraces the utility neglected and invisible beauty of abandoned buildings, neglected public housing, dilapidated outdoor seating, and the overgrown urban forests are at risk from a lack of imagination and coarse development.
architects brought their message to the Harvard Graduate School of design (GSD) in a filled image, poemlike evening conference March 24 in Piper Auditorium Gund lobby.
Lacaton is a design critic tour in Architecture at the GSD. She is co-teaching a course in spring studio called "Redefining urban life." (His partner is in GSD class instructor in architecture Marcos Rojo, a Spanish architect with an interest in the built environment of Africa West.)
course applies architectural ethics Lacaton & Vassal same battered urban increasingly dense and more. This ethic considers the design (and redesign) must focus on humanizing values of comfort, pleasure, welfare, economy and modesty.
drawings champion "precision, sensitivity Lacaton & Vassal , kindness and attention, "said Lacaton in the opening speech. Housing requires an architect "continuous attention to its inhabitants."
In a project called 23 semi-collective housing units in Trignac, France, Lacaton & Vassal built a series topped bright loft duplex greenhouses. The same idea - a solid, simple grid of concrete and steel and versatile enough to contain large indoor play - is at work in Nantes company's School of Architecture. Its three floors, the light steel structure emphasizes flexible interior generously sized, transparent enough to show views of the city.
Vassal called for buildings, such as Nantes, who "porosity", an effort to blend
to play in these projects is another of the principles of the company "what is inside and what is outside.": generous space build as cheaply as possible, with a sense of the economy that does not make it comfort and beauty. Pass the minimum, said Vassal, "to get the maximum."
Economics can also mean refurbishing what is already there. one of the most famous examples of this Lacaton & Vassal ethical sustainability is 02 reimagining of the Palais de Tokyo, a 1937 structure abandoned for decades, with 20,000 square meters of urban space underutilized in Paris the firm.
The design called for doing "almost nothing," said Vassal. "Just the minimum for heating, lighting." (It is a contemporary art space now attracts 800,000 visitors a year, and was expanded in 2012.) The result illustrates the beauty of doing little but intelligently, "make sustainable," he said, "what Already exists."
In another project, FRAC Dunkirk Lacaton & Vassal combined construction of the new economy with the old. Instead of demolishing an old boat warehouse in the port city of Dunkirk, France, they chose to build another just like it - at least the same dimensions -. Just off
"here, inside was the energy," said Vassal grand old interior of the original structure, nostalgic but useful. "Was here at within the work of the people. "(the dual structure is now a contemporary art gallery.)
The same idea applies to another project Lacaton & Vassal. a group of urban social housing, 10-story buildings of 40 apartments each was revived by adding balconies. They can be included as heat saving "winter gardens." They are full of light, and are sensitive to local views. All this has come, said Vassal, with a "much lower budget than demolition and reconstruction."
Similarly, in Bordeaux, Lacaton & Vassal turns a housing complex of 530 apartments by adding prefabricated balconies, maximizing windows, and the creation of enclosed conservatories. These steps are modest with spectacular results, and renewed pleasure in personal space. Meanwhile, said Vassal, the eccentric character of each apartment is left alone. "All this is extremely charming," he said from inside. "Why should we take this away?"
Not taking things far includes the preservation of natural environments. "Innovate," said Vassal, "but keep the site as it is." Many images projected from the conference included a house built on a dune in a seaside grove of trees. Construction - a lightweight frame, high steel and windows for walls - did not disturb a single tree. There were "50 to the start of construction, 50 to the end," he said. The idea was to be "extraordinarily accurate" by inserting a home in a setting that has already had "80 percent of what was needed," said Vassal, including sand, trees, and a view.
in the same way, Lacaton & Vassal designed a "green cluster area" on an urban forest patch. To save every tree - and allow more to grow - they have proposed the construction of housing units above the vegetation, on two levels. Connecting everything would aisles as trails, some of them high.
Addition of nature where no one is sometimes the answer. In Bordeaux, the company changed radically the appearance of an office building pedestrian with a single intelligent key light: a vertical garden of 650 rose bushes planted all around the facade
at other times. Said Vassal, the solution to a design challenge is even smaller, like a small shaded town square now had studied for months. The decision was "doing nothing," he said. "Nothing."
Their simple, building ethical, said Vassal, "always starts in this small hut in Africa. "
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