Vertical, in dialogue with its surroundings, the Étoile Lilas is designed as a city cinema rather than the type of multiplex found in shopping malls on the edge of towns. We chose to split the building into two volumes (cinema and retail) to make the public forecourt indispensible for going from one volume to the other. To the north, a tall, compact volume in the continuity of the high-rise buildings along the Avenue de la Porte des Lilas. To the south, a lower volume that opens out views, in relation to the scale of the neighbouring Cirque Électrique cabaret building.
An entrance hall extends the forecourt beneath the volume of the cinemas. The three upper cinemas are suspended above this Piranesian space, stacked in order of increasing capacity, like an inverted pyramid, in order to make room for a decreasing space for circulation. Four further screens are tucked away in the lower levels in order to free up as much of the piazza level for the ticket hall and retail. The regulatory openings and circulation spaces have been multiplied to give a multitude of different access routes and exits, each broken down into panoramic sequences with a variety of views both near and far across the city.

Yennenga was a Burkinabe princess. She gave her name to the new town to be built 15km outside Ouagadougou. An international competition awarded the project to our team, composed of one Burkinabe practice and five French practices of architects, urban planners and landscape architects.
Together, we have designed the town centre and its development around a central boulevard, some 750,000 m² built over 110 hectares, including numerous parks. Within an imposing climatic and demographic context, it was the land that decided the project, which fans out from a planted ribbon that displays the local flora and topography.
On the vast plain swept by the Sahelian climate, the north side of the town will rise up to provide protection from the dry, dusty Harmattan wind. To the south, its arrangement is more fractured, welcoming in the soft, damp monsoon winds.
Understanding the winds, harnessing solar power, capturing rainwater with dew traps and using of local, sustainable materials all aim to make Yennenga an energy-sufficient town.

The site sits in the steep slope of the Bièvre Valley in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris. An awareness of the specific geography of the site is at the heart of this project for offices, and is revealed through transparencies and dynamic visual openings. The entire development is organised along three little valleys running north–south, allowing for the organisation of the different buildings and functions across the slope, each parallel to the other. The 11m-height difference across the site implies the creation of an upper ground-floor level at the level of Rue Pascal (G+4) and a lower ground level at Rue du Président Allende.
The architectural expression and volumetric clarity is unified, despite the design being characterised by the decomposition of the buildings into separate sections. Each segment is different, using a variety of structural grids (1.35 or 2.7 m), colours and heights (G+1 to G+7), and they seem to quietly slip past one another. A multitude of transversal passages are made possible according to which floor one is on: via the planted valley paths that run between the buildings, via the large, open 'agoras' (basement and ground floor), via the large planted terraces on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors, or via footbridges (on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors).

The Westinghouse sites form a huge area to the south-west of Sevran on the northern outskirts of Paris. The urban renewal carried out by LIN is based on mixed use and an interaction between volumes. Our block is decomposed into three volumes (first-time buyer, social and student housing), forming a single group of buildings, and a fourth, square volume (controlled rental) on the other side of the public square.
The housing volumes are connected by terrace–walkways with unobstructed views.
On the main street, the facade in three volumes gives a rhythm to the linearity of the elevation. The numerous gaps and openings give glimpses into the gardens at the centre of the block, through to the railway tracks and the internal facades, which are treated with the same design language and level of care as the street-front facades.
In the residence, the accent is on diversity and quality communal spaces: a ground-floor terrace, communal balconies at each level facing the interior of the block, a roof-top terrace. The square footprint of the controlled rental housing is organised around an atrium, with access to the apartments via an internal, open-air walkway. A planted patio on the roof of the base echoes a planted terrace on the 5th floor.

Around the old wholesale market, now converted into a school, the practice has designed a tower and building of social housing. Built in wood, the development replies to both the ambition of a low-carbon district, as well as the anticipated timeframe for opening the school. The white concrete facades of the four buildings (two designed by our colleagues, Insolites) set off planting on the facades and at the centre of the block. The creation of single volumes demands rigorous attention to materials and architectural detailing, ensuring the longevity of the constructions.
The mixed-use tower (housing and offices), 53 metres tall, contributes to the dialogue between the other recently constructed high-rise buildings in the Confluence district. Our proposal consists of slimming down the form and blurring its edges, in order to blend into the landscape. The base is largely open, in direct dialogue with the public space. The spaces can be adapted for other uses, reversed, and remodelled by means of a rationalised structure.

The social housing has two halls giving onto the sides, freeing up the central part of the facade and giving maximum transparency through to the centre of the block. The majority of the apartments are double-aspect and all extend out into an exterior space. The structural principle is simple: spanning from facade to facade, reinforced by one or two intermediary walls. The facade, organised horizontally, plays on a contrast between matt and high-gloss. It becomes wider on the loggia side to create a base for planting, and opens up at the corners to give far-reaching views.

Opposite Massy TGV station, two buildings of student residences and 177 housing units are being built on the site of the demolished Safran block. The organisation of the team into co-conception workshops, the dialogue and the clear attentiveness between the partners has resulted in a joy of conception that is palpable in the urban and architectural harmony of the block.
The sculpted massing creates generous spaces: duplexes, double heights, terraces and loggias clad in timber. All the apartments have views over a canopy of gardens on the ground and higher up.
The two residences pool their functions, with shared circulation and services on the ground floor (breakfast room, cafeteria, laundry, sports room, caretaker's apartment) and at higher level (large shared terrace on the 6th floor). The halls are full-depth spaces, transparent and very high, working with the landscaping concept of permeability at the centre of the block, where access to the many bicycle storage spaces is also found.

This building slips in between the city and the railway lines. To the south, giving on to housing and Boulevard Péreire, the massing is decomposed into storey-height horizontal strips. Its indents and protrusions mark the horizontality, accentuating the view over the new road and alleviating the look of an office building.

To the east, crenelations cut out of the end of the building give it a powerful identity. The indents open up views through to the train tracks from the boulevard. A terrace garden, planted with grasses, echoes the proliferous wild vegetation on the railway tracks below.
The building systems of the different facades respond to the structural, acoustic and thermal requirements specific to each: on the south and west sides, a thin coating of fibre-reinforced concrete gives the facade a noble mineral quality on the boulevard, which combined with a timber frame creates a thin build-up with powerful acoustic and thermal insulation properties. On the north-east side, overlooking the railway lines, precast concrete panels reduce noise levels by 45dB. Metal cladding in different tones and levels of shine, break up the very long facade into a stacking of elements of dimensions similar to a train carriage of passengers.

'Sport, Nature and Timber', the winning project of the 'Inventons la Métropole du Grand Paris' competition in October 2017, is about winning back the urban environment, part of a larger move to transform Paris's ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique. In a response to the anarchic jumble of very different types of infrastructure and constructions, the project marries a diversity of different uses with volumetric simplicity and architectonic sobriety. It creates a visual breathing space to position the relationship of the passer-by with the city, making the Porte Brancion a real place, urban and human.
The three buildings – housing, a residence for young workers and a sports facility – dialogue to recreate, within a classical orthogonal plan, a kind of inwardness that serves as a quality public space, functional and calm. Multi-orientated metropolitan interface, the open architecture dialogues with its surroundings and renders the communal uses within each building visible to the outside world.

A short distance from the Clignancourt university campus, this building of 63 housing units is part of a development composed of two apartment buildings and a university cafeteria. The massing, arranged to ensure porosity from north to south, allows the sun through onto the tree-lined Rue de Croisset. In creating a large, south-facing open area at the middle of the development and a meadow on the roof of the restaurant, we were seeking to adhere to the original spirit of the greenbelt, which is now undergoing extreme densification. Compactness, slit, cut at an angle on the corner of the site, our project gives a new reading of the architectural language of the surrounding buildings of low-cost housing in order to improve urban comfort, optimise living space and provide higher levels of glazing in the facades. Very compact, the building is elongated by studied use of a second, lightweight skin that highlights its verticality. Following aesthetic principles based on how things are used, a network of balconies, seemingly random through its play of single and double heights, is orchestrated on the very rational grid of floor plans. This alternating arrangement enlivens the facades, allows maximum sunlight into the apartments and rationalises the surfaces of the balconies. On the garden side, the textured concrete gives a relief to the otherwise flat facade through a play of shadow and light. Its unevenness echoes the network motif of the road-side facades.

The three elements of the programme (crèche, renovated housing and new housing) were treated differently in order to fit in with the heterogeneity that characterises Rue des Annelets. Forming both a 'mix-matched ensemble' and a transition architecture, each building associated forms and materials in a distinct manner, reflecting the neighbourhood, which sits on the crossroads of what were the old suburbs of Paris and the huge modern housing blocks of the Place des Fêtes. Our architectural ensemble is consciously decomposed into a family of volumes of varied dimensions, proportions and materials. The stacking of simple coloured volumes also ensures ease of orientation and learning environment for the young children of the crèche. We also developed a natural landscape around a reactive building, following the seasons. Terraces and planted roofs, green facades, garden for crèche and apartments.

Our project consists of an office building that will provide users with workspaces that are comfortable and full of light, looking out over the city. But it also constitutes a new urban landmark, symbolising both modernity and respect for the environment. The choice of height (110m) replies to a double objective: stretching the tower upwards gives the office spaces the ideal depth for natural light and distant views over the peninsula and the ocean. It also means that the building is visible from the coast road, the plateau above the city and the port. Numerous buildings make up today's Dakar skyline (BCEAL, Fahd, Faycal, Kébé, Peytavin, Hôtel Indépendance ...), mostly dating from the 1960s and '70s. It seemed pertinant to us that a skyscraper, contemporary and emblematic, should join this architectural panorama as a symbol of the urban and economic renewal of the capital.
The facades, sealed by floor-height aluminium frames, are protected from sunlight by deep concrete panels interspaced every 1,2 m. The shade provided by these panels enabled us to avoid the use of air-conditioning, which is both costly and pollutant. This system makes it possible to use clear glazing for greater transparency, maximising views over the landscape of the peninsula and the ocean, which are framed horizontally.

The building formerly occupied by Renault's head office is being transformed to set a benchmark in terms of energy efficiency, optimization of surface potential, operation and use within the framework of a rehabilitation project. The shape of the building interrupts the imposing "urban façade", opening up the block to the quay on one side, and to Rue de Sèvres on the other. The project takes full advantage of its potential, in particular by enhancing the relationship with the Seine. The new façade, insulated from the outside, reveals the structure through prefabricated, tinted concrete modénatures. The second level of the façade is made of wood. The reduction in the number of parking spaces means that a sports facility can be built in the basement, and existing office space can be valorized in the form of spaces with plenty of natural light thanks to the creation of patios. The occasional gain in superstructure surface area makes it possible to integrate a retail outlet and residential units. The creation of long balconies enriches the range of outdoor spaces. With landscape architects Bassinet Turquin, we will also take advantage of the open ground in the non aedificandi zone to plant trees and enhance the new garden that characterizes the entrance to the building.

A stone's throw from Bandol on the French Riviera, Bendor offers a breath of fresh air, far from the hustle and bustle of the coast. On this small island, which was just a pile of rocks when Paul Ricard acquired it to concentrate everything he loved about the Mediterranean and to recharge his batteries, the atmosphere is multiplied, festive, sporting or contemplative. The golden age of festivities and creativity that characterized the island from the 1960s to the 1980s has gradually given way to obsolescence and the closure of some of the hotels. To rediscover the genius of the place and ensure the rebirth of Bendor without losing what makes its soul is the mission entrusted to Hardel Le Bihan in 2020, in association with the landscape designers Niez Studio. This massive renovation is rooted in the values of the Ricard family, with the most recent environmental requirements and the need for climate resilience.

The site is occupied by buildings with large surface areas that can be appropriated, with real constructive qualities, both in terms of infrastructure and superstructure. The project includes solutions for rehabilitating as much as possible of the buildings that can be rehabilitated, by deconstructing sparingly and building with great economy of means. Most of the existing office space has been restructured to offer a wide variety of housing types (coliving, young workers' residences, LLI, free housing), and an active first floor to serve the neighbourhood. To free up the land and develop a large central garden, the project organizes a reasoned density where the existing and the project combine their qualities. Renovated, transformed or new, volumes and surfaces interact with each other, and functionalities serve each other around the park.

The very first mixed-use project in Grenoble, Place Nelson Mandela. Over several floors: sports facilities, offices, hotel, urban spa and swimming pool, indoor/outdoor restaurants, co-living and R&D co-working. The elliptic facade – solicited by the urban context and the competition brief – adds further complexity to the complex site, close to the railway tracks and stations for train and tramway. The future building will give breath-taking views over the Alpine peaks and across the open landscape of Grenoble's presque-isle.

The Media Village will host the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with accommodation for journalists and technicians from all over the world; and then 350 housing units. Coordinator of sector A, Hardel Le Bihan orchestrated the principles of organization, composition and materiality. The site is marked by a variation in height of approximately 7.50 m between the bottom of the slope and the plateau. The practice is creating the 150 housing units of lot A2: three buildings, 16 meters thick, each cut into three epanelled volumes (R+2 to R+6) to sequence the 48 to 60 m long lines. A first building is inserted in the slope and marks the entrance of the new district with its stepped profile. Facing the unobstructed views of the park, the horizontal register of the facade is translated by prefabricated bands in white precast concrete. The other two buildings also have a flush design, to which is added an offset of the volume in plan. The projecting cornices, precast in concrete, serve as window sills. Loggias and double frames in buffering of bays animate the facades. Almost all the dwellings have a double orientation with a corner living room extended by an outdoor space.

This office building is composed of different levels on a complex site. Its range of spaces, terraces, orientations and atmospheres reflects the richness of the site, which the project takes care to reveal. Each level curves or bends to allow for the slope, for different scales or to open views towards the Seine to the north, Jussieu university tower to the east, and Hôtel Lebrun, an early 18th-century mansion immediately to the west.

In order to reduce the form and free up views across the forecourt to the neighbouring historic mansion, we reduced the floor-to-floor height to 3.35m, which enabled us to incorporate a seventh storey, but also to create the entrance to the offices on the more dignified and private side of the plot via the forecourt, also opening up the gardens to the rear of Hôtel Lebrun. Entrance to the retail unit is made on the other side, at the crossroads, in order to maintain a maximum stretch of shop-front along the street. The final segment of the facade, at the west, is double-height so as to extend the ground floor up to the higher segment of Rue du Cardinal Lemoine and to ensure the continuity of the retail base. A succession of terraces is created in indents, shared external spaces at different levels. High-performance full-height glazing ensures maximum natural light.

The new regional headquarters for telecommunications company Orange is an extension and renovation of an old telephone exchange. While making the most of the industrial building, it also gives an urban coherence to the city block by breaking the project into two 'folded' volumes that wrap around the existing building.
Our starting position with regards integration within the neighbourhood was to create a large, uniform building on a continuous ground plane, so reducing what we see as the negative effects of a multiple development, which can be overloaded with too many building types and too many textures.
The new buildings find harmony in the homogenous grid of their facades (echoing the existing building) and the cut surfaces that shape the volumes by freeing up large planted terraces for the office floors.
The idea behind the sloping roofline is the double advantage of framing the existing building in order to enhance it, as well as freeing up views to and from the surrounding residences. The broken lines of the southern extension shape the industrial telephone exchange building, revealing its qualities as a work of architectural heritage. The terracotta coloured, powder-coated aluminium facade echoes that of the telephone exchange, which is visible behind its concrete exoskeleton. The overall ensemble forms a unique volume and a powerful landmark at the entrance to the Part-Dieu neighbourhood.

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The riverside ecodistrict developed on Saint Denis Island for the 2024 Olympic Games is home to 2500 athletes, before becoming a genuine, mixed-use neighbourhood. The architects (ChartierDalix coordinator, MGAU, NP2f and Hardel Le Bihan) have established shared rules in order to ensure a harmonious building frontage along the Quai du Châtelier: a common facade language, continuity of the two-storey base, balconies, identical materials for railings, joinery and blinds. Within the PA block, Hardel Le Bihan Architectes is designing an office building, with open floor plans, converted into temporary accommodation for 234 athletes. On the fifth floor, a recess marks an intermediary level and frees up a future planted terrace with 50cm of soil, in addition to outdoor areas on all levels. A permanent housing program could be decided upon depending on the economic situation, to the benefit of the residents, who would benefit from the qualities of the initial office design: a high floor pitch and glazed facades with a high degree of openness.

The narrow parcel and the context of the development zone led us to setting the building along the street. There are opening windows on all sides, while the heart of the building is composed of a large 16 x 30m patio. The project aims to promote well-being in the workplace by means of extensive and varied planting (as well as the forest patio there are two large terraces for use on the fifth floor), generous daylighting, and flexibility of spaces. The landings and lift exits offer quiet views over the interior garden.
The building is comprised of a ground floor above which are four levels, from which emerge two slender volumes. The ground floor, with a ceiling height of 5 metres, provides great flexibility of use in order to accommodate halls, restaurant and craft activities.
The 80m-long facade is ordered by an alternating grid of single and double modules. On the standard levels, the single modules are solid and the double modules glazed, whereas on the base, the fifth floor and the top floor, the modules are entirely glazed or louvered. The surface finishes of the concrete were the subject of extensive research in order that the materiality should fully contribute to the spirit and identity of the place, in particular with the stylized imprint of the concrete which evokes a motif from the Basilica of Saint Denis, on the opaque modules.

On the edge of Vincennes and Fontenay-sous-Bois, the site stretches lengthwise. To the west, it borders a large company headquarters, to the east a heterogeneous block destined to be transformed. We have positioned the buildings as parallel fingers with large, east-facing patios in order to offer a more urban facade to the developing city. The treatment of the ground floor clearly rhythms and sequences the project, providing both a human scale and a certain lightness. The block is opened up by a new pedestrian alleyway that crosses the project to provide daytime access between Rue Cuvier, Rue Lagny and Rue Robespierre. The palette of materials is deliberately limited, unadorned and coherent between exterior and interior. Wood is the common element that is seen throughout the glass–aluminium–concrete ensemble. At the top of the building, the fine grid of the building envelope is extended into a glazed balustrade without a top rail to express an evanescent crown, welcoming life up on the rooftops.

This office building plays an important role in the development of the Nozal Front Populaire neighbourhood development zone on the northern edge of Paris. It borders Rue du Pilier, which is set to become a busy urban artery as the shortest route from the new Place du Front Populaire to the Canal de l'Ourcq.

Our project reconciles the functional requirements of a blank office building (compact, divisible, typologically homogenous with a continuous depth of 18m, identical floors, etc.) with a division of massing that introduces a form of relief, of rhythm to aid its integration into the urban landscape. The compact volume is subdivided into four parts articulated by slight translations and rotations. These variations give a sequential reading of the facades while maintaining a functional unity from the 2nd floor up. On the ground floor an entrance porch opens right through to the internal gardens and provides independent public access to a gym, which itself is given increased visibility from the street by means of a double-height, fully glazed facade.

In Paris, the Maine Montparnasse district is undergoing a major transformation, as part of the dynamic metamorphosis of emblematic entities such as the train station and the Montparnasse Tower. On the edge of these complexes, the office building that marks the corner of Boulevard Pasteur and Rue du Cotentin is highlighted by a free and richly planted setback. It has a massive facade with a strong 70's connotation, with a pleating that is as atypical as it is remarkable. Wishing to preserve this essential feature of its identity, we propose to optimize the performance of the envelope, the articulation between the different spaces and programs, while giving birth to a new perennial image. The project gives to read a continuity between the whole of the spaces, without rupture nor base, light and slender volumes, a frontage expressing the interior quality of offices benefiting light, views and space.

The studio is refurbishing and transforming 12,000 sqm of office space on Rue de Bercy in Paris' 12th arrondissement. The project opens up the building, which paradoxically had been cut off from its surroundings: housing the car park of the AccorHotels Arena, the ground floor turned its back on the green spaces of the Place Bernstein and the adjoining riverside park.
The entrance and lobby on Rue de Bercy are preserved, but the car park is reduced to a central pocket encircled by retail outlets that open to the exterior. At the centre of the building we have demolished the base (ground and first floors) of the original building to create an atrium bathed in natural light.
With regards massing, the building is lifted up to the height of the three protruding cylinders. The two corners are closed and the concrete walls of the cylinders demolished to create a large open floor plate on each floor for improved internal organisation. An 8-storey agricultural greenhouse will be built on the roof of the restaurant.
On the facade an inclination is incorporated which lightens the solid panels between glazed openings, while above, the spandrel panels are cut down to allow for more glazing and make the building appear lighter.

The hotel is a line soaring up towards the sky, a vertical monument dedicated to the mysterious geoglyphs that cover the Nazca desert in southern Peru. Two inhabited beams suspended 100 m up house 20 bedrooms, the panoramic restaurant and the reception. These beams are supported by three columns housing vertical circulation, photovoltaic panels, reservoirs and water treatment plant. One of these extends up to 200 m as an observation tower for the entire site. The hotel was prefabricated in Lima and assembled on site in a few weeks. It is a fragile giant, just like one of the archaeological figures that it steps over. Its energy sufficiency and building system mean that it is both extensible and reversible. Economical and dismountable, it will always be adaptable to the uncertain future of tourism.

From 2013 to 2016, the practice Hardel Le Bihan has transformed Créancey's Castle outbuildings to develop studios, workshops for artists and showrooms.

Nouvelle AOM is the collective created in June 2016 to enter the international Demain Montparnasse competition.  Formed of the association of the founders of three separate Parisian practices (Franklin Azzi Architecture, Chartier Dalix and Hardel Le Bihan Architectes), it is a new, independent entity, working in collaboration with a team of highly qualified, Paris-based consultants, including Setec, T/E/S/S and Elioth.
Three studios, because the associates felt that the Montparnasse Tower deserved a collaborative design, that it must be the reflection of multiple entities.
The name refers to AOM, the collective of architects who designed the original tower, which was built in 1973: Agence Architecturale pour l'Opération Maine-Montparnasse, made up of Eugène Beaudoin, Urbain Cassan, Louis-Gabriel de Hoÿm de Marien and Jean Saubot.
The architects of Nouvelle AOM are of the same generation as the tower, grew up in the neighbourhood. In October 2016, finalists selected out of 700 candidates, they brought together a team of about 50 people on the 44th floor of the tower to form a laboratory of design and research, producing models on site, working, collaboratively, on the project for the tower they dreamed of for Montparnasse.

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Standing at the foot of Tabarly Bridge, the building can be seen from a distance, marking the edge of the burgeoning Malakoff neighbourhood, the sweeping landscapes of the Loire, and Nantes Island. Its massing and architectural detailing are also designed to work at a human scale, and work well within the surroundings.
Our project is based on overlapping uses by positioning them across the width of the building. This mixed-use approach reflects the dynamism of the 'nouveau Malakoff' surrounding neighbourhood. Slipping between the three sections that make up the development makes it possible to abut the programmes: a volume of housing to the south and two volumes of offices to the north. This decision to overlap the different volumes greatly increases the quality of the future building, in terms both of urbanism and architecture as well as functionality and sustainability. The orientation of the housing units is given priority, with views over the Loire, providing a maximum number of multi-orientated apartments and loggias at the corners.
The regularity of the facades is enlivened by variations in the frame in the form of occasionally alternating single and double grids. The prefabrication of concrete elements highlights the care given to the architecture.

The operation is developed in the Domino sector of La Courrouze, a former military zone in Rennes, Brittany. Its three buildings are anchored on a common base 4.50 m high. The first is a residential building with a floor-to-ceiling height of 9 metres, offering maximum views out, while the first two levels are occupied by offices. The other two buildings are for offices, at R+4 in the central part, and R+6. The sandy-ochre concrete façades, tinted in the mass, are enlivened by an effect on the pattern of hollow joints. There are no projections, and the external spaces of the offices and flats are recessed into the volumes in the form of loggias.
The common base includes double-height retail units to the north (on the avenue side) and two levels of parking to the south. Landscape designer Niez Studio has used it to create a communal hanging garden on the first floor. All the offices on this first level open onto this vast terrace, while access from the ground floor is via the large external step between the emergence of the residential units and the central plot.

Under the coordination of Hardel Le Bihan, the collaboration between the three architectural agencies Barrault Pressacco, DVVD, Hardel Le Bihan and the landscape architects Bassinet Turquin ensures a variety of styles for this 26,000 m² block. The overall coherence is ensured by the use of identical materials and the agreement on common rules. On the rue de Picpus, the linear nature of the plot, 100 meters long, led us to set the residential building back 20 meters to offer the inhabitants a public square of approximately 1000 m². The composition of the metallic façade of the office building (HLB) expresses the reconversion of the existing activity hall (arch. Roland Schweitzer). The building is organized in three parts: the hall with a height of R+1 is embedded in a built volume of R+4 crowned by an attic recessed on the facades, excluding the gable. The roof of the hall is transformed into an accessible terrace for the offices.
In the garden of the heart of the block, open to the public during the day, our R+8 apartment building opens up the view towards the sky at the bottom of the plot with a marked spread of the last two levels. The organization in plan is clear, with a first floor composed of three dwellings, then a current floor of five dwellings taking advantage of a double exposure or a favorable southeast or southwest exposure for the mono-oriented apartments.

Mixing hotel, offices and workshops in a hybrid programme, the 17&CO project redensifies the Avenue de Saint-Ouen, aiming to become a destination in its own right, linked to the internationally renown neighbouring flea-market. By redrawing the lines needed to structure the site, we are able to open the ground floor out onto the street and bring the public space into play. The challenge is also to open up the block: the overall urban form was designed to dialogue with the existing apartment block to which it runs parallel, enhancing it and making it more accessible.
The site, whose trapezoidal geometry allows us to create generous terraces on the west facade, is made permeable by throughways, openings, public and shared semi-public spaces, not only at ground level but also higher up. Right up to the roof, where a sky bar, gym and glasshouse for events have been created.
Reversible landmark building, the Karaoke Tower marks the southern limit of the development, punctuating the advertising hoardings along the Boulevard Périphérique. The tower speaks of parties and sound, neither of which find a ready home within the traditional urban fabric.
Finally, the project, which preserves 500 existing parking spaces, incorporates a multi-service transport hub based on the idea of a valet service that offers different modes of transport to follow on from the private car: bicycles, car sharing, communal parking.

At the crossroads of Rue Gambetta and Rue Paul Bert, the winning mixed-use project on Block 6 respects the cultural heritage and diversity of the Méhul area. The urban fabric is characterized by the close interweaving of residential and industrial activity. The relationship between new building and renovation/ conversion participates in achieving the desired balance, particularly with the preservation of two warehouse buildings with saw-tooth roofs, one metal and the other concrete. The density of the project is concentrated on the north side of the site with residential and office buildings along Rue Paul Bert, which are G+3/4 + a roof-top storey. To the south, the low, G+1 nursery school and crafts buildings are in keeping with the existing industrial fabric. This arrangement of heights ensures optimum sunlight for the buildings and garden. All the buildings use brick, which marked the industrial history of the Pantin area. The small nursery building has timber-frame walls. Its ground-floor is clad in brick for durability and harmony within the block.

The permanent exhibition pavilion of the Cité de la Mer is a building located alongside the famous submarine Le Redoutable. Built in 2002 by the architects Studio Milou, it is a museographic space on 3 levels, designed to accommodate 1,000 visitors. To highlight the aquariums, modernize the scenographic path and offer a better working environment to the museum teams, we completely transform the interior spaces. In support of the scenographic proposals of our partner Pascal Payeur, we are enriching the palette of materials, with, for instance, bumpy stainless steel plates that reinforce the effect of immersion at the heart of the visit concept. Some architectural modifications were also necessary on the existing building: the tour now begins at the second floor level with the ascent of a large escalator to match the height of the highest aquarium in Europe, the entrance was modified; some floors were demolished to create views from the ground level and to free space, as in the new Jules Verne lounge, which is double-height and faces the aquarium.

In line with the urban planning guidelines laid down by ANMA, the volumes accentuate the dynamics of the angular plot with their slender roofs. Breakthroughs and spreadings help to recreate the parcel rhythm of the ordinary town and identify three main "houses". The buildings are firmly anchored in the ground, with a unified treatment from the ground to the top. The variable depth of the balconies and their staggered arrangement enliven the overall effect. The seniors' residence responds to a wide range of needs by offering a variety of private outdoor spaces and typologies ranging from large T1 apartments (34 m²) to small T3 apartments (660 m²), with a majority of large T2 (44 m²). The high-ceilinged, generously glazed, walk-through spaces draw the eye to the garden at the heart of the block, designed by landscape architects Grue.

The practice is coordinating macro-lot C of the ZAC Gratte-Ciel Centre-Ville, a reinterpretation of the emblematic district built by Môrice Leroux in the 1930s. The project extends and densifies the avenue Barbusse in the perspective of the City Hall, under the direction of urban planners ANMA. The co-design was organised around workshops held over 15 months following consultation with local residents and future users. Our building, known as B2, is a mixed-use, 13-storey building with 32 BRS (bail réel solidaire) flats above two levels of shops. On the 16x26 m corner plot, the asymmetrical massing creates a wider façade on rue de Pressensé, which we propose to cut to retain a domestic scale that can be adapted to the new district. An external staircase occupies the gap, marking the entrance to the dwellings in direct reference to Leroux's historic Gratte-ciel. The floor plans are cruciform: the staircase to the north, the lifts and other shafts in the centre, in order to free up the four corners and ensure that almost all the dwellings are bi-orientated. The kitchens are always naturally lit and most of the time connected to the private outdoor space. Whenever possible, the bathrooms are also located on the front of the building, to ensure healthy ventilation, a principle dear to the hygienists of the early twentieth century.

In the grounds of a former infantry training school, the Cité Créative new district brings together schools and companies in the cultural and creative industries, housing and activities. Facing the Halle Tropisme, a cultural centre that marks the western entrance to the Cité, the 160 coliving units are distributed in seven volumes set up according to a play of shifts and offsets to maximize views and visual openings. Lot 1EA is organised around a large open-air garden that provides a cool island effect. Along the main street of the district, the coworking base opens onto this transparent garden. The penthouse restaurant expresses the vertical walkway dynamic of the block, whose dwellings are served by corridors and the landscaped roofs are largely accessible. Lot 1EB is smaller in scale and is installed in relation to the existing perimeter wall and welcomes newcomers to the ZAC. The construction is planned to be mixed, with a concrete framework and modular wood, with facades alternating white rendering and wood cladding, balconies or private loggias for all the dwellings in addition to the large shared outdoor common areas.

How does one go about installing an apartment, an office, a small apartment for occasional visitors, and an exhibition space for a collection of contemporary art, all within 165 m2? We undertook studies in this dynamic typology that would optimise both space and volume within the complex programme. Spaces and functions are considered by superimposition and permutation rather than fragmentation and distribution. An open, continuous space winds around a technical core, prism of articulation between the existing and the extension, between dark and light, communal and private. Three large sliding screens and two pivoting screens allow for the subdivision of space that is around the core, providing for a multitude of different configurations to meet a variety of professional or private uses. In an open space arrangement, the mobile screens hide storage and equipment, functionally and visually neutralising each part of the programme to give one neutral, unified space.

French newspaper Le Monde wanted a headquarters that would hold a place in the heart of Paris similar to the place it occupies within the landscape of French media. The building has to be both landmark and observatory, to make sense of the city that it calls home, and in return to provide it with a singular and exacting viewpoint. As the site benefits from exceptional visibility, the project had first and foremost to put forward its urban qualities.
Its massing acts as an indicator of the complex topography of the site, and of the rich architectural heritage of the surrounding area. But it is above all within the editorial offices, inside looking out, that we wanted to provide the staff of Le Monde with stimulating spaces. A building within which information circulates freely, where ideas can be thought through calmly. A protective haven for the journalists, conducive to debate, while also forming a place to welcome the political, economic and cultural figures of the moment, as well as the readers themselves of the different titles published by the group.

In order to preserve links with the town's history and collective memory, we chose to renovate the existing concrete halls, incorporating them into the brick office developments. At the confluence of the Seine and the Marne, the five conserved halls (the competition stipulated the renovation of only one) were largely glazed and were destined to house shared facilities and collective spaces. The massing was built up on the Rue Molière side of the site, with three 18m, nine-floor office buildings.

L’îlot Avenue de Lyon marque l’entrée du projet métropolitain Grand Matabiau, sur la rue du Faubourg-Bonnefoy. Le lieu, chargé d’une histoire maraîchère, appelle une conception capable de tisser un lien fort entre centre-ville, canal et faubourg, et respectueuse de son identité.
Les façades et volumes du nouvel îlot empruntent aux éléments patrimoniaux qui l’entourent : architecture toulousaine, esprit de faubourg, bords du Canal du Midi. Sur l'Avenue de Lyon, le front bâti régulier reprend la trame des faubourgs et forme un socle surplombé de deux émergences dont le facettage s’adresse aux différentes infrastructures en présence. La connexion urbaine s’exerce aussi par l’implantation d’un archipel de programmes thématiques autour de la solidarité et de la mixité entre acteurs locaux, habitants, populations précaires et hôtes ponctuels.
La co-conception en ateliers thématiques (quatre agences d’architecture et deux de paysage coordonnées par Hardel Le Bihan) se ressent dans la richesse et la cohérence d’écritures et de matérialités de l’îlot. La démarche de recherche constante a permis à l’équipe de compenser la construction neuve par un projet à faible impact carbone en brique, brique de réemploi, bois en structure et béton bas carbone.

The social housing and sheltered accommodation make this a place of hope, of social (re)integration by means of access to appropriate housing. The southern facade continues those already along the street, drawing a slight fold to affirm and enhance the offset of its surface from the two adjoining buildings. The existing house is lifted up and reorganised to make it possible to incorporate the sheltered accommodation and to give it a distinct character. It makes best use of abutting the window-less party walls in order to preserve the transversal openness across the site.

A symbol of excellence in West Africa, the University of Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) in Dakar is a reference well beyond the African continent. The 27 new buildings designed to house 10,700 students are spread over three different sites: UCAD, Cité Claudel and École Supérieure Polytechnique (ESP). The design was driven by an ambition for high-quality internal spaces and for thermal comfort: careful choice of materials, natural ventilation, a balance between sun-screening and sufficient natural light, wind channelling, etc. The morphology of the buildings reveals this bioclimatic approach while respecting the surrounding urban fabric (limited height), and at the centre of each building, walkways and footbridges create convivial, community spaces.

The lively ground floors are designed as communal spaces (laundry, study room, TV rooms, club rooms, kitchens) and student-related shops. The campus addresses the city by means of new entrances, small public squares and planted areas. The facades, defined by the regular grid of bedrooms, are enlivened and identified by different patterns in the mashrabiya screens (providing solar-shading and privacy). These were designed with Senegalese artist Alun Be, who also created the brick mosaics that ornament the gable walls, depicting UCAD teaching.

In order to integrate this new building into its environment, particularly with regards the two low adjoining buildings, we broke down its massing and made it less compact. The 6th and 8th floors step back incrementally from the street-front and west facades to form two upper-level superimposed volumes, benefitting from their west-facing aspect. The five first levels benefit from balconies that cantilever 1 metre out over the street and participate in the overall composition of the volumes, where each section reveals a different type of apartment. The accessible exterior spaces – balconies and terraces – provide both efficient sun-screening and privacy from the neighbours. They reinforce the coherence and identity of the ensemble, while lightening its mass.
We proposed an innovative building system to minimise the use of concrete and thus the resultant environmental disruption from the site. Above all, the practice was adamant that the building should be made as flexible as possible to meet the future, anticipating the obsolescence of the envelope and changes in the building's use. The structure is formed of a reinforced concrete frame with the core providing lateral stability. The facade, in lightweight timber panels, can easily be modified or replaced in the long term.

This development on the Boulevard de la Prairie au Duc, in an up-and-coming neighbourhood on the Île de Nantes, is comprised of three buildings with one shared base at ground level. This base houses six retail units, offices facing south and onto the central space, and entrance halls to access the housing units and offices above. The roof of one of the buildings is accessible and has a vegetable garden and external furniture, encouraging shared use by the residents.
Building A comprises 11 storeys above ground, with retail units on the ground floor, then two levels of offices and nine storeys of first-time buyer housing units. Balconies provide views over nearby shipyards and the banks of the Loire in the distance.
Along Boulevard de l'Estuaire, Building B is seven storeys high and occupies a prime position on the site, overlooking the railway tracks that are soon to be transformed into 'city gardens'. The generously glazed ground floor houses modular office spaces designed for collaborative projects and innovative working practices. The five upper levels contain first-time buyer housing units. The unusual detailing of the vaulted roof on the side of the central open space and of the facades (a regular grid of slender concrete beams in-filled with glazing) are inspired by the language of industrial building, in reference to the site's past. Broad balconies give onto the city garden.
Finally, Building C, comprised of social housing units, eight storeys high, presents homogenous massing marked by the regular rhythm of windows, which transcribe its logic of compactness. On the garden side, cantilevering balconies benefit from a south-facing orientation.

The development is built on a large site that was entirely occupied by a garage. The challenge of the operation consisted in integrating social housing, quality housing for first-time buyers and a crèche, all on the same, densely developed site. The street frontage of the site is characterised by a non-alignment, which allowed us to express two distinctive volumes and so soften the visual impact of a large built face. This non-alignment resulted in the street having two different widths, so generating two different building heights (an extra storey for the first-time buyer housing). The inclined planes of the rooflines allowed for the integration of roof terraces on the top two levels of each building: the successive recesses above the fifth floor allow for generous terraces orientated to the south and the east.

Ambilly is at the centre of the Etoile development zone, which links Annemasse and Geneva. Plot C8, developed by architects Atelier Martel, Cathrin Trebeljahr, Bamaa and Hardel Le Bihan, displays a coherence that was established during collaborative workshops with the urban designers D&A and the client. The decision to use the same materials throughout – sandblasted concrete and Douglas fir – contributes to the overall harmony. For the housing units designed in collaboration with Bamaa (lots G1 and G2), we also worked on connecting the two buildings by means of shared stringcourses and identical floor heights. The principal height of the block, ten floors over ground level, responds to the required flexibility with a concrete grid system into which timber panels are inserted that integrate single- or double-leaf windows. This organization makes it possible to rearrange the windows in the event of change of use.
The small apartment buildings on lots E and F ensure the transition with the surrounding suburban fabric. Three-storey timber-framed buildings with facades in pre-aged Douglas fir on a sandblasted concrete base, they comprise a majority of two-level units, naturally lit circulation cores, and living rooms opening onto outdoor space – garden or terrace.

The proposed site for the creation of 12 apartments is on a north–south axis, with a 9m-wide street-frontage, facing a little square that opens up views. A high adjoining building to its east allows for abutment, and to the west a generous, tree-lined courtyard. Studies of sunlight and models of the massing of the city-block led us to opt for a single, compact building. To the west, we bring it back 2m from the boundary so as to be able to put in windows to bring natural light and an open view from the kitchens, bathrooms and entrance halls, as well as a second aspect for the sitting-rooms in those apartments on the courtyard side.
The road-side and courtyard-side apartments are separated by a light-well. Extending the 2m recess as far as the road enables us to open up the centre of the block onto the road, giving a visual continuity with the greenery of the square, better ventilation, and allowing more light into the light-well. The progressive cladding of the new building, dictated by its massing, animates the facades on the garden and street sides. Each recess is used to create a terrace or balcony.

The housing scheme for plot J1 of the Écocité Canal de l'Ourcq development zone is broken down into seven buildings of different heights, arranged over the site in accordance with the urban and landscaping principles established by Devillers & Associés, urban planner for the Écocité development. In order to reinforce the Rue de Paris as an urban thoroughfare, while also sheltering the centre of the city-block from this busy road, our architectural scheme forms a sufficiently solid screen while leaving visual openings through to the canal.
Within the context of the block, the choice of a pentagonal plan for the buildings presented several advantages: providing an extra face by comparison with a traditional plan, this form, with its subsequent folds on the internal faces of the block, offers increased possibilities for multi-aspect apartments with the resulting variety of views. By sequencing the facades in this way, the project fragments the northern facades, avoiding direct views between the buildings and creating a long, uninterrupted, backlit surface. Like a cylinder, the pentagon is more compact than a four-sided plan. For the same floor surface it has less linear facade and proportionally more windows, resulting in an architectural image of greater quality.

It is unusual for architects to be asked to build in the middle of a forest. This opportunity followed the adoption of an urban planning law that authorised the transformation of agricultural buildings for housing. The project consisted of transforming a ruined shed used by the forestry management. The project takes inspiration from its particular setting, which in all directions consists of a homogenous succession of smaller or larger trunks and tangled undergrowth. Consequently, the house does not have a main facade, its layout is not polarised: from all points of the main room, which includes the kitchen, dining room and sitting room, the inhabitants have framed views of the surrounding forest. The bedrooms are designed as cabins sitting against the internal walls of the facade and roof, in cylindrical volumes like broad, hollowed trunks.

Our practice has won, together with real estate developer Coffim, the competition for the transformation of a former printing house into a hotel in the 20th district in Paris. The site is in the heart of a grassroots, industrial neighbourhood, typical of the East side, Rue de la Cour des Noues. The building will also host a coworking, a cocktail bar and a garden. On the street side, the facade made of concrete panels hides a metallic structure. Our project enlightens the industrial heritage by revealing the existing qualities of the printing house, through a new facade made of steel. Also, the public access to the coworking and patio in the center of the program is at the core of the concept. More picture of the site before transformation here.

In both function and architecture, the hotel is the first thing met by travellers exiting from the south side of Amiens' Gare de Nord. Largely open onto the public space, its ground floor reads as an extension of the station's forecourt. The main body of the 6-storey building takes the form of a large, curving, concrete sail, rounded at the principal angles so as so soften its massing and recall the stretching curves of the railway tracks that run alongside the space. The choice of white concrete pays homage to Auguste Perret, architect of the station, the Place Alphonse Figuet and the tower. A top floor in backlit, profiled glass highlights the curves of the facade and reinforces the presence of the building at night, a nod at the neon signs that characterise station surroundings. The organic composition of the windows amplifies the dynamism of the facade despite the strict regularity of its structural and functional grid.

The existing office building is demolished in favor of an 84-room hotel developed on five levels. Part of the low floors are kept as infrastructure, except for a twenty square meter area at the back of the plot, where a charming shade garden blossoms in the open ground. A monumental staircase marks the entrance and leads to a first double-height basement, naturally lit, where the lounge, the bar, the patio and the meeting rooms are located. On the second floor, the furnished rooms are glazed on their entire facade. The window frames are concealed by natural stone frame elements. Thermal solar panels for the production of hot water conceal the technical equipment necessary for the proper functioning of the establishment.

The project to transform this high-rise building, located Rue de la Tombe Issoire in Paris, seized the opportunity of the asbestos being removed, for an overall revision of the way the building was used. The facade of its base has been brought into scale with the rest of the building. It has been stretched to double height, serving as a protective screen for the Japanese garden that has been made at the corner of the two roads. The ground floor has been entirely rethought. The entrance is part of a fluid distribution that runs from the forecourt right into the centre of the building. Off the reception is a meeting room overlooking the garden, and a lounge area that manages the transition between the exterior and interior.
In plan, the office areas are now open floor plates, flexible and modular, around a restructured central core; the landings are naturally lit; circulation has been optimised, gaining 100m² on each level; a peripheral walkway has made it possible to incorporate internal solar shading and for facade maintenance without the need for a cradle system.
On the third floor, part of the surface area originally destined for traditional offices has been transformed into a co-working space, opening onto a terrace on the same level. By optimising services, a terrace on the 12th floor has also been freed up and enlarged, providing 360° views over the rooftops of Paris.

The massing blends into the dense urban landscape, fitting in with the heights and scale of the adjoining buildings, keeping the idea of a traditional townhouse, or of artists' workshops. If its height closer resembles that of an apartment building, its volumetric composition in three distinct volumes gives it the reading of a house. Our approach was one of a certain abstraction from materials (heterogeneous surroundings) into order to focus on the shape. The massing is simple and pared back. Three blocks are piled one on top of the other, in the same material (power-coated steel cladding) but with different finishes.

Le territoire du projet rassemble des entités contradictoires dans leur fonctionnement mais qui participent à l’identité de ce morceau de ville. L’enjeu de notre proposition est de les fédérer pour aménager une cohérence urbaine. Le projet est envisagé sur un mode recto verso : un extérieur dense qui répond à l’environnement intense, à la ville de la voiture. Un « intérieur » protégé et accueillant, propice au confort d’usage et à la sociabilité urbaine, dans une variété d’espaces à l’air libre. L’enveloppe extérieure est caractérisée par la minéralité du marbre et la transparence du verre. Des débords de planchers de près de 1 m participent à la protection solaire et au nettoyage des façades sans recourir à des nacelles.

Le monolithe de brique s’intègre sobrement sur la parcelle de 7 x 22 m, dans le contexte hétérogène caractéristique de ce quartier périurbain des Hauts-de-Seine. Il assure une transition évidente entre le tissu pavillonnaire et les mitoyens (R+1) et les logements collectifs plus denses de quatre étages en vis-à-vis de la maison, sur la rue. A cet égard, un dispositif de mise à distance était essentiel. La clôture sur rue, sous forme de moucharabieh en brique crée un premier filtre, puis un porche à rez-de-chaussée assure un sas d’entrée généreux, à l’air libre, avant d’accéder à l’intimité de la maison et à la surprise du grand volume ouvert sur le jardin. Un système de demi-étage entre rue et jardin est créé pour rattraper le dénivelé et moduler le parcours en douceur entre les extérieurs et les intérieurs. Depuis l'extérieur, la proportion réduite de vitrage protège la tranquillité des habitants tandis qu'à l'intérieur, l'abondance de lumière naturelle et de vues donne une impression d'ouverture généreuse. Les larges cadres menuisés et les persiennes en bois anoblissent ces ouvertures et apportent de la chaleur à l’enveloppe homogène des façades en briques.

Looking for a work method specific to the project allowed us to associate the interior designer and architects from the beginning, bringing together two very different methods and styles. The clients wanted to introduce two different ambiances: château life, in a classical style, and urban life, with a pared back, contemporary architecture. To avoid any kind of cadavre exquis and ensure coherence within this pairing of designers and styles, we focussed our attention on the centre of the apartment for the installation of all the functional and technical aspects of the programme, while the interior designer worked on the internal envelope, the rear of the facade. The result was spaces with a duality, with an abstract contemporary face on the city side (white gloss) and a traditional, decorative face on the park side (18th-century panelling, heavy curtains). Between these two worlds a collection of contemporary art finds its home.

This programme closes the eastern front of a block inspired by the traditionnal Bastide, a typical, orthogonal group of buildings of different heights around a large square hosting a market or important public events. Our Bastide is conceived as a coherent whole which nevertheless allows the richness of the programme, the rhythms of the facades and the entrance signals singling out each building. The heart is inhabited by a large central which is enlivened by the outgrowths. The western part of the block is composed of housing by Leibar & Seigneurin and King Kong architects. At the base level, the coherence between the housing and the tertiary programme (higher education school) is obtained by creating a double height of the base and setting back the corresponding facades of the ground- and first floor. Located at the corner of the block, the office building reverses the general principle. The visible load-bearing facade is animated by the noble concrete modelling, the projecting cornices and a slight recess in the window frames. The roofs of the emergences are sloped and made of zinc, those of the lower volumes in the form of accessible or planted terraces. Throughout the project (design and construction), the flexible design allowed for a 100% school, 100% office programme or a combination based on vertical and horizontal division, as access to the 6,000 m² building is via three different halls.

This renovation adds a bit of soul to the traditional treatment of an office building. In its respect for the history of the existing buildings, the project restores the urban qualities that were originally aimed for, making them more functional, with circulation space adapted to today's, and tomorrow's, requirements.
We chose to preserve the private house at number 5, renovating and refitting it. The building at number 7, which was of no particular historical interest, and whose floor heights did not lend themselves to being united with number 9, has been partially demolished. The street-front building at number 9 has been preserved. Its courtyard-side wings, badly connected, have been demolished so as to free up space at the centre of the block. These demolitions enabled us to recreate an articulation of volumes on the street. The creation of a large rectangular courtyard across all three plots opens the site up to the north while unifying the whole development around a garden. Finally, the new circulation cores are designed and positioned so as to free up workspace, optimising dedicated spaces, rationalising people flow and enabling connections between the three buildings at different levels.

This project began with a modest building (3-storey, Art Deco-inspired facade and regulatory allowance for another 150 m2) and a client living in the 50 m2 of the top floor without much interest in contemporary architecture. However, property values left him no alternative in order to accommodate his growing family in central Paris. Then comes a chance meeting with a new generation architectural surveyor from the planning office, who confirmed, "the possibility of expressing a contemporary architectural creation, on existing buildings, as on buildings which will be constructed." A constructive discussion began. We treated the two new levels like a zinc roof so as not to add another element to the facade, which already had a crowning and two different renders. The volume is broken down to respect a balance of scale with the existing levels below, to create breathing spaces, let in natural light and cross views, within the perimeter of the overall volume. The client's wishes matched the latest sustainability targets: to plant recesses and vegetalise the facades, natural light, remain living on the 2nd floor during works, and avoid the use of wet trades.

The massing fits into the dense urban landscape, adapted to the volumes of the street and the scale of the adjacent buildings, all the while maintaining the idea of a traditional town house, should that be a private mansion or an artist's studios. While its height is more reminiscent of an apartment building, it is the composition of volumes in three distinct groups that allows it to be read as a house. Our approach was to distance ourselves from materials, of which there is quite a variety in the surroundings, and to concentrate on the form. The massing expresses simple and pared-down form. Three boxes are piled one on top of another, all in a single material (clad in power-coated steel sheets) but with different finishes.

The project consists of the addition of two extra floors to a two-storey 1950s townhouse. In order to avoid the new volume looking like a heavy block, we used a cladding of aluminium mesh in different densities. This perforated second skin unifies and distinguishes the extension. It integrates all the different functions of the envelope (cladding, shutters, balustrades), thus limiting the addition of these extra elements on to an existing, modernist facade. The new volume appears as a simple crown that enhances its base, giving only an idea of the bedrooms inside.

At the prow of the Rond Point de L'Europe, our project brings unity and a clear reading to the entrance of what is today a heterogeneous neighbourhood with little attraction. The practice studied the incorporation of 110 economic and sustainable housing units with retail outlets on the ground floor. Breaking with the office language of the 1990s, the three upper floors are both set back and fragmented, 'folded' to lighten the ensemble. As well as a shared garden, the accessible roof terraces provide families with the possibility of turning their hand to urban vegetable gardening and composting in the new urban block–neighbourhood.

In the competition for Engie's future headquarters, we wanted the architecture and landscaping to be a vehicle for the company's restructuring and transformation. This was the basis for the fluid approach taken by the team, with the idea of facilitating exchange, of both people and knowledge, circulating, meeting and mutually enriching. Capable of evolving and open to the city, the development acts as a landmark within the landscape, conceived to be at the forefront of innovation, yet still able to adapt to, indeed to generate, future evolutions. By associating the renovation of a large industrial building with new, timber-framed buildings, the Engie campus creates an ecosystem, a grid that houses new ways of living and working while preserving the well-being of its users.

This mixed-use block is the first to be built in the ViaSilva urbanization, on the site of the new Rennes metro. Highly visible from the station, the building plays its role as an urban signal while ensuring a smooth transition of scale between the infrastructures and the future neighboring buildings. The 38-unit apartment building interacts with an office building. On the upper floor, programmatic mix and mutualization are expressed through the suspended garden and the shared space open to this beautiful open-air wooded area. On the housing side, the garden is served by a common space of 110 m2, intended during the day for office employees and in the evening and on weekends for young residents.
The evening and the weekend to the young residents of the colocation/coliving apartments. For this new centrality, the stepped volumetry and its successive recesses dialogue with the horizontalities of the bus station and the metro viaduct, while ensuring a smooth transition between their different heights.

In the Bassins à Flot district, the cinema stretches from the quay to Rue Lucien Faure across two city blocks, around 80m long and 45m wide, separated by a covered walkway. The entrance faces the recently created Place du Pertuis. From the hall to the screen entrances, the building is largely open over the city. The long corridor on the first floor, like an internal street, gives a sequence of views out over the city of Bordeaux and the water in the Bassins à Flot harbour basins, and participates in the urban animation of the facades. The cinema exits dotted around the complex, along with the retail destination on the ground floor, participate in this quest for dialogue between the new cinema and its surrounding neighbourhood. The form, the play of roofs and the arrangement of the building make the most of the site to increase both user experience and energy efficiency. The glazed surfaces and sun-screens are adapted to their orientation to ensure thermal, acoustic and visual comfort. The landscaping of gardens overhanging the quay brings natural light into the middle of the building while also providing green space for residents and strollers along the quay.

This project consisted of creating an exhibition space for children, an educational workshop and a theatre in the large room of the Galerie de l'Évolution. We took down all the existing installation apart from the cross beams supporting the mezzanine, in order to arrange the exhibition space over two levels. The theatre and educational workshop are superimposed at the far end of the room. The theatre is an enclosed space on the ground floor, entirely glazed, which can be screened off by means of a large curtain around its perimeter. The educational workshop opens onto the theatre from the mezzanine.

The extension of the Chalet on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne finds its place within the landscape by embracing the contrast between two different architectures. The glass and timber pavilion opens onto the water. It comprises a sheltered, planted patio and, on the roof, a large terrace offering panoramic views out over the lake. The building is low and light. A hedge of azaleas encloses the space. The facades carry a system of sunscreen panels that function as vertical shutters, animating the facades and giving them a clear identity.

To ensure its place within the horizontal lines of the riverside landscape at the foot of France's national radio station building Maison de la Radio, a multi-energy hub for last-mile logistics has been designed as a long object on the banks of the Seine. Sitting above this, in the style of a lightweight building on stilts, Hardel Le Bihan's centre for higher education divides into two suspended levels, which are extended by continuous balconies overlooking the river. These are topped by a little rooftop pavilion that opens onto the roof garden. The facade is light and transparent, rhythmed by folds in the glazing that dialogue with the rippling waves and multiply the viewing angles.
Inside, to support a new approach to education based on entrepreneurialism, the flexible floor plates with a timber-framed structure house different methods for education, in teaching spaces and in an incubator, which aims to accompany young graduates in the transition into working life. The building has been awarded the highest environmental certification, E+/C-, meeting the low-carbon emissions targeted by the City of Paris.

En 2022, le concours pour la transformation du cœur de ville de Cavalaire-sur-Mer a pour objectif de concilier le charme d’une petite ville pittoresque, à échelle humaine qui doit pendant quelques mois d’été être hyper efficace dans son fonctionnement et ses services pour accueillir des flux démultipliés. La recherche du meilleur équilibre entre cette dualité d’échelles, de rythmes et de publics a servi de fil rouge à notre conception. Notre proposition offre ainsi un modèle économique à géométrie variable pour un lieu agréable à vivre toute l’année. Le projet urbain est d’abord un paysage, pensé comme une allée provençale fraîche et ludique, avec des parcours faisant corps avec l’architecture pour soigner partout le rapport du dedans et du dehors. Pour potentialiser les usages, la grande salle de spectacle s’ouvre par exemple sur un forum abrité (6 x 150 m), ou encore plus largement sur la place du marché à travers trois larges ouvertures. Les grands bâtiments ont une architecture méditerranéenne, avec la pierre comme matérialité commune, un design singulier et une dimension signal puissante. Certains programmes jouent les contrepoints à la masse de la pierre, comme le gymnase, avec sa peau de bois assemblée verticalement.

The Ouidah campus in Benin is a major academic project carried out by the Sèmè City development agency as part of the Government Action Program (PAG 2021-2026). Hardel Le Bihan is coordinator architect of its realization, in team with the Taller de Arquitectura Ricardo Bofill (RBTA, Barcelona), Cobloc Architecture in Cotonou and the landscape designer Niez Studio. On an exceptional natural site, the ecocity dedicated to Made in Africa innovation will eventually spread over a 336 hectare site, developed by urban planners Atelier LD. The campus will be built around five innovation clusters. Hardel Le Bihan is building the Sports Academy, the incubator-makerspace, the conference center, academic buildings and student housing. The project is based on a bioclimatic and resilient approach, an active step to develop and strengthen local eco-construction sectors. Sustainable construction methods are favored, using standardized structures and frames for the academic (8m) and residential (6m) buildings, which, with their adapted heights and dimensions, offer modularity and scalability to adapt to programmatic hazards.

The site is a future landmark for the entrance of the City of Colombes, when driving from the A86 Highway. Together with ChartierDalix Architectes, we chose to avoid the local model of great business center of the neighborhood : hence the volumes helps the Campus to be an urban linkage. Its porosities create forecourts, visible and accessible from the outside.
Planted terraces, as well as the central yard, are shared, modular spaces. The building base is dedicated to services.

Launched by Semapa in March 2017, the 'Inventer Bruneseau' competition concerns the creation of a 100,000m2 neighbourhood destined to recreate a link between Paris and the eastern suburb of Ivry sur Seine, at the end of the Avenue de France and next to the Quai d'Ivry motorway interchange. The new district is a densely populated, built-up area immediately alongside Paris's boulevard périphérique ringroad, It is organised around a public space that extends the Avenue de France towards Ivry by passing beneath the périphérique. The Bruneseau Seine project proposes a coherent and harmonious architectural sequence, alternating very tall buildings with lower constructions along both this new axis and the Seine. It offers calm, generous and welcoming surroundings, as much for its residential programme as for the offices and retail. In the centre of the neighbourhood is a large hall beneath the périphérique, which houses a food market and a cultural and social programme open to the public. In Michel Kagan's municipal centre, a permanent shared facility is created around the theme of craft and applied art. The housing reunites a mix of generations and re-examines ways of living at high level in Paris.

The 7-storey building contains 24 rented apartments in its upper floors, while the ground floor contains retail units. The entire length of facade running along Rue Pajol, round the corner, and a third of the way down the facade on Rue Neuve is occupied by one single retail unit, 140 m², but is divisible into two units if required. The other end of the north facade (the crèche side) is occupied by a smaller retail unit. Between the two is the entrance hall to the apartments and the concierge's lodge, which is a small apartment facing onto the garden. Conforming to urban planning legislation, the ground-floor floor-to-ceiling height must be at least 3.2 m (the average under-soffit height is 3.4m).
The single vertical circulation core composed of an enclosed stairway and a lift-shaft, runs from the basement up to the 7th floor. Floors 2 to 5 contain two small, single-aspect apartments, a two-room corner apartment and two three-room apartments at either end, occupying the full depth of the buildings. The 6th and 7th floors are massed towards Rue Pajol while backing up onto the adjoining gable. Their successive steps back create large, accessible terraces.

In Bordeaux's Brazza district, the three buildings are aligned along the Garonne riverfront, separated by 6-metre gaps running perpendicular to the river to let the sun through into the development. The poplars of the Angéliques Park riverside landscaping run along the front. As well as a south-facing garden, generous loggias extend the upper apartments. Inside, the design puts the accent on a range of framed views over the landscape, and on sunlight. The loggias' trapezoidal geometry reinstates an orthogonal plan for ease of fit-out.
Again for the purposes of rationalising the plan, buildings B (G+7) and C (R+4) share a lift and staircase. They are linked by an external walkway. Building A (G+5) is independent. Close to the river, the ground floors are raised and access is made from the centre of the block via raised paths, like pontoons. The facade design takes its inspiration directly from the concept developed for the park by Michel Desvignes: the lightweight grid of the posts (tapered cylinders) becomes narrower as it rises, contributing to an impression of slenderness and to a progressive privacy necessary to the appropriation of the loggias.

In the La Défense district, architects Nouvelle AOM have reinterpreted Tour Ariane 50 years after its original design by architect Jean de Mailly, with the primary goal of reducing energy consumption. To achieve this while creating a clean and regular architectural expression, the original façade (known for its cruciform aluminium shields) is transformed by Nouvelle AOM into a new "dress of light", featuring glass in front of alternating prefabricated concrete panels and porthole windows of the primary envelope. The proposals place the users at the centre of the project: the base will host functions like those of a grand hotel; the mezzanine level will feature a business centre with an auditorium, meeting rooms and a foyer, while the more transparent entrance pavilion offers services that firmly anchor the tower in the neighbourhood. This project, with 85% occupancy – accommodating 4,000 users – is a model of reuse, with 90% of the glazing and 85% of the aluminium shields being recycled.

In an area of urban redevelopment alongside the northern stretch of Paris' boulevard périphérique ring-road at Porte Pouchet, the long facade of the Odalys City 148-room apartment hotel faces onto what is soon to be Place Pouchet. The project is part of a larger scheme for a zone of urban development directed by urban planners TVK and Michel Guthmann. The massing and envelope of Hardel Le Bihan's architectural proposal for the hotel address three issues: the arrangement of assorted spaces and scales, at first glance difficult to unite; respect for the visual comfort and privacy of the residents of the Borel flats to the rear of the site; and reducing acoustic reverberation in the future square. Rather than creating additional disturbance, the undulating metal cladding of the long facade contributes to urban comfort by diffracting traffic noise. This wave was also designed to bring a bit of joy into this cold and impersonal zone on the city's edge. The corridor and facade walls are load bearing, whereas the walls between the bedrooms are lightweight partitions for easy dismantling, a design choice on the part of the architects in case of change of use: large, open floors could easily be created.

This project is part of the overall urban renewal of the Quatre Chemins neighbourhood. We have created an urban street frontage and broken the building down into three blocks in order to open up views into the middle of the development and through to the building at rear of the site. The idea was to give the three blocks the look of juxtaposed buildings of the ordinary and varied forms found in the streets of the town centre below: double-pitched roofs, attics, brick buildings, rendered buildings ... The architectural sequence thus created along the street breaks with the monotony of the particularly uniform existing built fabric (one single block of uniform height on the western side of the street). The scale of the street is changed by introducing a kind of domesticity that was lacking. Finally, as the above ground car parks take up a large proportion of the space, we chose to conceal them by integrating them into the ground-floor plan, to the north beneath the building, to the south beneath the terraces.

This new neighbourhood is grafted in one continuous flow onto the surrounding neighbourhoods: a new kind of hybrid urban typology, between houses in the woods and the eco-neighbourhood, a residential neighbourhood that goes hand in hand with the free composition of a contemporary and sustainable piece of city. Permeability with surrounding styles deliberately influenced the form of our building, its orientations, massing and geometry. The variety of typologies (detached and collective) and architectural styles (three teams of associated architects) play a strategic role in this quest for heterogeneity. It was not a question of designing a self-sufficient, exogenous 'housing estate', but rather of proposing a neighbourhood with a variety of atmospheres, integrated with its surroundings and using mimicry, breaks in scale and heights to create a feeling of having always been there. The enviable geographic position of the site, at less that a kilometre from a major regional transport hub and close to a shopping centre, led us to favour circulation on foot or bicycle within a public space conducive to community contact, where the role of the car is carefully managed and confined to functional car parks.

Situé à 10 minutes de la gare de Nantes en tramway, le quartier du stade de la Beaujoire est repensé par les urbanistes Germe&Jam pour bâtir de nouveaux programmes de logements accueillant suffisamment de mixité. La parcelle industrielle de 10 000 m² est bordée d’infrastructures (voie ferrée au sud, rocade au nord). Une nouvelle voie privée est créée pour traverser l’îlot dans sa largeur. Autour de cette voie s’implantent sept immeubles de logements, dont un composé de deux niveaux de bureaux, suivant une gradation de hauteurs allant du R+2 à R+8 pour ouvrir un maximum les perspectives vers le ciel depuis la rue. Les logements intermédiaires (au plus haut R+4), sans ascenseur, sont composés essentiellement de duplex. Les logements à RDC ont tous un jardin et l’ensemble des appartements de l’îlot sont multi-orientés.
La déclinaison de matériaux d’enveloppe selon la typologie adoucit la perception de la densité : brique de terre cuite pour les intermédiaires, béton sablé teinté dans la masse, bois pour l’émergence de logements libres. Les détails sont particulièrement soignés, pour mieux justifier la sobriété de l’ensemble. L’ornementation réside dans les effets de tamponnement autour des ouvertures, la serrurerie, les corniches en béton et jeux de calepinage des briques qui soulignent les socles des différents bâtiments.

Looking towards the port and its industrial landscape in the west, within the Littorale zone developed by Euroméditerranée and urban designers Anyoji Beltrando, the site is marked by the historic layers of the Mediterranean. On the long plot between Rue Cazemajou and Boulevard de Vintimille, conception is shared between Buzzo Spinelli Architecture and Hardel Le Bihan in a duet anxious to provide the same quality and typological innovation to both lots. The ensemble comprises two apartment buildings to the north and south, which frame a series of rent-controlled apartments orientated east–west. The height is adapted to the volumetric constraints and contexts of each orientation: the G+7 apartment building defines the new square, while the G+4 to the north-east fits discreetly into the skyline of Boulevard de Vintimille. The rent-controlled apartments to the east are restricted to G+1 to let more light through. To the west, the raw earth facades rise to G+5. The system of access rhythms the 60m facade of the rent-controlled apartments: the stairways and walkways that outline the slender volumes, a choice of access that enlivens the developments along the new alleyway and the Rue des Entrepôts. All the units are double-aspect and benefit from large sheltered outdoor spaces.