Lavalle Peniche
A Process of Constant Evolution
MGGA
Reflective design, resilient practice
VOID STUDIO
Historical Roots in Contemporary Spaces
MANUFACTURA
Reclaiming Design Through
Heritage and Technology
WIDO
Democratising spaces
FMT
Ethical Spaces with Enriched Lives
Dosorozco
Handcrafted Harmony in Design
MOG+
Rural Essence Brought to Modern Design
Morari
Deliberate Design with Thoughtful Execution
Taller BAC
Native Landscapes
Practica Arquitectura
Creative Convergence in Practice
V Taller
Towards a harmonious practice
3 M E
Identity, Territory, Culture
GRADO
Learning from the local
MATERIA
Blending Integrity with Innovation
BARBAPIÑA Arquitectos
Designing for a sense of belonging
[labor_art:orium]
Architecture rooted in emotion, functionality,
and truth
OBVdS Workshops
Fostering a Dialogue-Driven Adaptability
HW Studio
Designing Spaces with Emotional Depth
MAstudio
Building Authentically, Impacting Lives
JDEstudio
Stories Behind the Structures
TAH
From Constraints
to Opportunities
Inca Hernandez
Shaping a Timeless
Future for Design
TORU Arquitectos
A dynamic duo
blending bold visions
Estudio AMA
Redefining Narrative
Driven spaces
NASO
Designing for Change
and Growth
RA!
Global Influences,
Localised Innovations
MRD
Embracing local context
and community
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New Generations is a European platform that investigates the changes in the architectural profession ever since the economic crisis of 2008. We analyse the most innovative emerging practices at the European level, providing a new space for the exchange of knowledge and confrontation, theory, and production.
Since 2013, we have involved more than 3.000 practices from more than 50 countries in our cultural agenda, such as festivals, exhibitions, open calls, video-interviews, workshops, and experimental formats. We aim to offer a unique space where emerging architects could meet, exchange ideas, get inspired, and collaborate.
A project by Itinerant Office
Within the cultural agenda of New Generations
Editor in chief Gianpiero Venturini
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After graduating architecture from the Institut Saint-Luc de Tournai (ISA Saint-Luc de Tournai) of UCLouvain (Université Catholique de Louvain), Olivier Camus and Lydéric Veauvy founded TANK in Lille in 2005. Their work results from a strong commitment to creating sensitive architecture in which the context resonates. The firm’s approach addresses the ecological and economical challenges the architectural profession is facing today, while defending stronger cultural values of beauty and harmony at the same time.
We are both French and we met in Belgium at the beginning of our studies at ISA Saint Luc de Tournai. We developed a real rapport as far as group projects were concerned, out of friendship. In addition to that rapport, we wanted to work with a strong team to think carefully about how we would approach architectural design. The first important competition that we competed in and won together as TANK, with the College Claude Lévi Strauss in Lille, was an important marker of our history. The project has a powerful relationship to its context, strong and sensitive materiality, spatial expressiveness. We started with small private orders, houses, renovations, and gradually arrived at doing public commissions: a rather traditional professional path in France.
Our first beautiful project stories are those of the first individual houses; these small, stimulating and economical projects resulting from very sustained exchanges with their various owners. This is where our attention to experience, intimacy, use and listening was born. In the absence of tricks, an observation: being honest (about the economy, objectives, etc.) does not always allow you to win competitions! And that is really difficult. What sometimes appears as a weakness on the part of those who judge the competitions also remains the responsibility of the architects capable of promising everything.
We are both teachers at Saint-Luc, and our point of view is that we’re there to train people to be armed to enter the profession: creatives with added value, not just good draughtsmen. We try to teach our students that what lies at the core of our activity is creativity, a capacity for in-depth thinking, an ability to see the big picture, and a sense of ethical responsibility.
In our projects we try to leave room for nature. Although it might seem like a romantic position (and I’m comfortable with that), I especially like the 2+2 House and the Little House overgrown with weeds, lost in a kind of wasteland. It’s just free, wild nature expressing itself and taking over. This attitude, which we share, sometimes creates difficulties with landscape designers. We’re more naturalists and environmentalists than gardeners—the work and philosophy of Gilles Clément is essential for me (Olivier).
We are not heroes, just two architects who seek to work well while continuing to be creative and to have fun, to take pleasure in designing pleasant and happy places. We understand that this profession requires a certain public acknowledgement, a certain visibility to access a commission. Architects are still too often perceived by the general public as ‘heroic’, or at least as media figures. But we are both very private, our public lives as architects are limited to what is strictly necessary. It’s sometimes difficult to reconcile these two lives. The profession has changed: before, the architect was there to draw plans, to design the layout, to be creative. Today, one has to spend a lot of time managing a thousand useless problems (admin, standards, etc.) and there is never enough time for architecture.
We moved to our Lille office a few years ago, the offices used to be a family house and we redesigned it and turned it into an office. We would like to say that we are well organised but we really are not, we were not trained in running large methodical agencies. We are rather passionate craftsmen, our office is like a big family, where the creative energy compensates for the lack of organisation. Our studio is a space where we always find attention and kindness for everyone, but as in any family, there are hierarchies of knowledge and experience. Everyone has an appropriate role and can express his or her talent, and we all discuss our different ideas and approaches. The intuitions that arise from these many discussions are tested using models in our model shop.
I (Oliver) feel a growing gap between what should be done and what each brief requests, I think that we have not yet fully undertaken the necessary measures of societal transformations in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The public competition, which is passed mainly by the competitions, does not allow for, or only allows a little, research on these subjects, we remain in a framework of having to deliver very fast answers. Research or reflection work must be done upstream. Sometimes there is a bigger opportunity to explore new avenues through private commissions, it’s less regulated, less restricting and predetermined, and the client is more open to new possibilities. As architects, we fight for humanistic values in a system that is not designed to produce them. But we’re lucky enough to attract clients who want to travel down the same road as us. We are currently working on a couple of large-scale projects, including the new headquarters of Groupe Lesaffre in Marcq-en-Baroeul, and the redevelopment of the Site des anciens Pêtres, Carré Janson in Tournai, which are now both under construction.
We have to quickly find a way to make architecture that does not harm our presence on/ relationship to earth. How can architecture save the world? It is a heroic aspiration. Unfortunately, we don't have an obvious solution today, apart from profound transformations in our consumerist societies. We are aware that we will have to invent new ways of practising our profession in order to finally take care of our planet and the people who inhabit it. This necessarily involves new ways of working and new ways of getting paid: it's absurd to be paid today for the percentage of materials used in a project when it should be the opposite! We try to develop precise details but simple solutions. The use of single materials means we can preserve quality in terms of composition, framing and proportions; it supports the physical and visual force of the buildings. We are wary of expensive façades and fad-dish skins. The quality of a building should not lie solely in the material you add onto it.
Images courtesy of TANK
Photography Julien Lanoo