Ein Textbeitrag von Anne Lacaton und Jean-Philippe Vassal, verfasst anlässlich der 2018 im aut gezeigten Ausstellung "Inhabiting: Pleasure and Luxury for Everyone". erschienen in aut: info, Nr. 2/2018.
design approach
Architecture is about freedom, generosity, pleasure.
Architecture must create sensations, pleasure, comfort and not constrain.
Architecture must be generous.
All our projects talk about inhabiting, dreams, freedom, transformation, landscape, city ...
Recurring questions appear in the filigree: capacity, flexibility, superimposition, climate, comfort, pleasure, shells, structures, cost-effectiveness, economy which allow architecture to be designed as a mechanism to offer more freedom.
Our philosophy and approach to architecture are based on principles of generosity and economy, serving life and uses. We aim to design an architecture that is not standardized but creative, that challenges conventional answers to free the uses of buildings from artificial constraints. To us, architecture is the freedom to use a space, to be able to create and innovate in a space, to get beyond mere functionality and provide a kind of liberty in the spaces we create that allows many types of functionality. The project must also be efficient and smart in its innovative approach to sustainability – an approach based not only on an economy of material and energy, but also on the superior quality of space and the engagement of the users in sustainable relations to their comfort within the building.
design process
Our approach to the design process is based on these principles:
generosity of space/extra space, double space
Spatial generosity is essential. Our goal is to build as much extra space as the programmed space, in order to facilitate a multiplicity of uses and appropriation. This extra space does not have a defined function. It is free for uses. This is our idea of
luxury, which is redefined in terms of generosity, freedom of use and pleasure.
economy, to spend less and better
Economy is a key point. We consider it as a tool
of freedom. Contrary to reducing or being a con-straint, economy allows a positive maximization of the budget, allows more to be made with the same budget, allows reaching for what is essential, setting priorities and making architecture always af-fordable. Spending less and better is sustainable.
a bioclimatic concept
Building upon the climate, light and uses means the maximum use of the natural resources of the climate: sun, light, ventilation, for natural comfort and saving energy. We especially use spaces like winter gardens which are climatic spaces, but
moreover spaces of use. Bioclimatic space endows the user‘s responsibility to manage the comfort and the energy use through simple gestures.
use efficient systems of construction
open structures, prefabricated structures which efficiently and economically generate high capacity volumes and grounds, giving a great potential of use. It allows larger building for the same cost and producing the extra space and it allows fast, clean and easier building.
importance and value of the existing
Every place has beauties if we are attentive enough to see them. Every restriction can be positively turned around. Reusing, transforming and reinventing what already exists are incredible preliminary riches given to the projects, if we are able to see the values already there. It requires focusing on accuracy, amiability and attention: to people, to uses, to structures, to trees, to paved soils, etc., everything that already exists and that has allowed life and uses to be hosted. This is also the opportunity for the sustainable development of the cities.
never create constraints of use
To provide space for people and uses, to enable appropriation and users’ creativity, to create freedom of use.
a process of designing from the inside out
We always start the design from the interior, think about the space from the inside, always from the position of the user moving from one space to another. We design architecture as an addition of spaces, of atmospheres and of relations.
dialogue and participation
We like to let the project open up to allow discussion and adjustments, to make the adaptation of the program possible, to take expectations in account, to allow appropriation and improvisation by the users, and to involve their participation and
responsibility.
Architecture must be straightforward, useful, precise, cheap, free, jovial, poetic, cosmopolitan, affordable and optimistic.
Eine Ausstellung des renommierten französischen Architekturbüros Lacaton & Vassal, die anhand exemplarischer Projekte ihren einzigartigen Ansatz Freiräume und „luxuriöse“ Lebensräume für alle zu schaffen veranschaulicht.
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