Civic Friche, Issue 1

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JOURNAL OF EMERGENT URBANITY
>I SSUE no. 01
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January 15 2011 – March 31 2011 Béthune
Béthune, capitale régionale de la culture 2011
Dans le cadre de Béthune, Capitale régionale de la culture, Le centre d’art Lab-labanque propose de
produire et d’accueillir en ses murs un projet « design » en partenariat avec l’ESBA-Valenciennes et le VIA-
Paris. Les manifestations se dérouleront durant l’année 2011.
photo Talia Pinto-Handler
« l’appartement, une métaphore du monde »
PROJET DE RECHERCHE ET D’EXPERIMENTATION AUTOUR DE LA NOTION D’HABITER
Le langage courant utilise indistinctement les mots « habitat », « habitation », « habiter » pour
évoquer le logement ou la manière de se loger. Pourtant ces mots recoupent des niveaux
de réalité différents dont leur définition et leur interrelation peuvent nous renseigner
sur la condition d’existence des sociétés humaines. Ainsi le mot habitat, dès son origine,
définit le milieu géographique adapté à la vie d’une espèce. Il renseigne tout autant sur
le milieu géographique que sur les mœurs. Quant à l’habitation elle est synonyme de «
logement ». C’est la recherche d’un « chez soi », d’une « manière d’être ». L’habitation
contribue à la personnalité de chacun. Enfin, habiter ; le sens de ce verbe possède une
dimension existentielle. Chez Heidegger c’est une manière d’être présent au monde et à
autrui. Habiter n’est donc pas un refuge, une protection contre le monde extérieur. Bien
au contraire, « c’est parce que l’homme habite que son habitat devient habitation »
(Thierry Paquot). Ainsi, ce projet entend traiter la question du logement à partir de celle
de l’habiter. Les étudiants impliqués dans cette recherche devront s’immerger autant dans
« l’appartement » du centre d’art Lab-Labanque que dans le contexte urbain de Béthune,
là où se croisent et se maillent dans un rapport complexe l’économie, le social, le sociétal,
le technologique, le culturel, etc. ; un ensemble de facteurs qui détermine les conditions
matérielles d’existence sur un territoire, ici et maintenant. En même temps, Ils auront
à cœur de projeter des situations qui interrogent les manières d’être à soi même et à
autrui, et de dessiner un monde de l’intime et du commun dans ses dimensions imaginaire
et symbolique.al, le technologique, le culturel, etc. ; un ensemble de facteurs qui
détermine les conditions matérielles d’existence sur un territoire, ici et maintenant.

>>>

>> in issue oh-one
15
21
27
35
Marie Combes
F r a g m e n t i n d é t é r m i n é ,
Fragment indéfini
Tyler Willis
C h e a p
Thrills
Jackie Kow
Site Marker
Lauren Bebry
Eat me I’m Beautiful
47
53
59
63
I v a n A d e l s o n + Ta l i a P i n t o
Handler Vice @ LU
Kayla Lim
I s i t O K t o S h i m m y a t t h e
Morgue?
Katie Baldwin
G a r e a u
Gorille
Brittany Roy
A r c h . w / O u t
Architects3.0
81
95
101
103
109
Lauren Vasey + Mo Harmon
S q u a t t i n g P l a c e d e s
Vosges
Mo Harmon
Speranza!
Katie Baldwin
E m e r g e n t
Program
Devon Stonebrook
Arch + Lace
Bruce Findling
Product(ion)
03

39
N a t h a n D o u d
Spatial Mechanics
43
Jean Louis Farges
S p a c e i s
Luxury
73
Patrick Renaud
Manœuvre
77
Bruce Findling
Seven Meters Thick
113
119
Christophe Ponceau
Green Trap
Ivan Adelson
Anthropomorphics

>> contributors
IVAN
ADELSON
J O R D A N
BUCKNER
NATHANIEL
DOUD
DEVON
STONEBROOK
J A C K I E
KOW
Ivan Adelson received
his Bachelor of Science
in Architecture from the
University of Michigan.
Through investigations
of the built form and
the pragmatic use of
architecture, his work
focuses on ways to promote
social and cultural
engagement while providing
proactive solutions to
contemporary architectural
issues. Ivan is currently
attending the University
of Michigan’s Taubman
College of Architecture
+ Urban Planning as a
candidate for his Masters
in Architecture.
Jordan Buckner is an
aspiring designer and
architect working to
understand and challenge
the social and political
relationships inherent
within architecture. He is
also an aspiring romantic
who likes to party.
Nathan Doud was, is, and
ever shall be a fan of
The Simpsons. Through
exhaustive research that
has spanned the last 23
years (first television
appearance: April 19,
1987), he has come to the
unavoidable conclusion
that everything in life
can be related back to
that frozen-in-time-
representation-of-an-
American-family known as
The Simpsons.
Devon has a passion for
design as it intersects
architecture, fashion,
and furniture. She loves
digging through vintage
shops and flea markets,
reinventing old treasures
in a fresh way. With a
taste for the eclectic,
her ideal Sunday afternoon
would include family,
friends, ice cream, yoga,
and a pinch of Lady Gaga.
Jacqueline Kow is a UG3
who is attracted to bright
colors, typography,
innovative simplicity,
logical thinking, movement,
makeovers, fashion
illustrations, smiley
faces, cute animals,
and shiny objects. She
intrigued by the human
psyche and hopes to create
designs that affect it.
Oh, and she loves the color
purple.
MATT
NICKEL
BRITTANY
ROY
KATIE
BALDWIN
NOUREEN
LAKHANI
(TI)MO(THY)
HARMON
Matt Nickel received a
bachelor’s degree in
European History from
Bowdoin College in
Brunswick, ME. He is now
a professional graduate
student in the Master of
Architecture program. He
is interested in large
scale urban architecture
projects.
05
Brittany Roy is currently a
UG3 student at the Taubman
College of Architecture
+ Urban Planning. Her
interests include reading
the New York Times and
studying the interaction
between architecture
and politics. Her goal
is strong architectural
political statements. Her
mind has been Friched.
Though relatively new to
the world of friche, Katie
Baldwin has become a fast
supporter of the idea of
designing buildings for
people who use them. Prior
to fricheing out, Katie
received her undergraduate
degree from Bryn Mawr
College. She is currently
heading into her second
year of the 3G program
at Taubman College of
Architecture + Urban
Planning. Also known as
Madame Fromage, Katie can
execute a mean parallel
parking job.
Noureen Lakhani received
an undergraduate degree
in Computer Science from
DePaul University. She
is currently pursuing a
dual Master’s degree in
Architecture and Urban
Design at the University of
Michigan, Taubman College
of Architecture + Urban
Planning. Her interests
include landscape,
urbanism and public space.
Mo Harmon is an
undergraduate at the
University of Michigan’s
Taubman College of
Architecture + Urban
Planning. He is very
excited about the ability
of architecture to
positively impact its given
environment and community.
He plans to continue
developing his design
skills to create socially
responsible architecture.

LAUREN
VASEY
ERIKA
LINDSAY
BRUCE
FINDLING
KAYLA
LIM
Lauren Vasey received her
BSE in 2008 from Tufts
University where she
studied engineering and had
an interest in art history
and computer science.
She is now in her second
year of the 3G M.Arch
program at the University
of Michigan where her
itnerests include emerging
technologies, structural
innovation, adaptive
reuse, and architectural
theory. She believes
design is intrinsically
interdisciplinary, and
hopes her varied interests
will interrelate to help
her create architecture
that will first and
foremost improve the lives
of the people who inhabit
it.
restless wanderer.
scavenger. innovator.
maker. inquisitive about
signs of life in strange
places. fascinated by
human interaction with
constructed environment.
seeks solace with
collective anonymity. finds
refuge in great bodies of
water.
Bruce Findling is a 2nd
year graduate student at
the University of Michigan.
Whether he’s wielding a
hammer, a laptop. or a
sixer of Pabst Blue Ribbon,
Bruce gets it done and has
the scars to back it up.
Just make sure the beer is
cold and the first aid is
ready...
Kayla Lim is a recent
graduate from Taubman
College’s undergraduate
architecture program.
Although some believe she
should ditch academia and
become a performer, she
is planning on applying to
graduate school this fall.
Unless, of course, you have
a really hot architecture
job to offer her.
TALIA PINTO-
HANDLER
TYLER
Willis
LAUREN
BEBRY
Talia Pinto-Handler
received her Bachelor’s of
Science in Architecture
at the Taubman College
of Architecture and
Urban Planning in May of
2010. Her interests in
architecture are closely
tied to contemporary
projects that address
issues of social
stratification of the
environment and the
relationship between built
form and the sociopolitical
climate. Talia will be
attending the Yale School
of Architecture this
fall in the Master’s of
Architecture 1 program.
Tyler Willis is a UG3
and has a wide array of
artistic interests from
architecture to industrial
design, sculpture, and
music. He hopes to
continue creating and
exploring the vast realm of
the arts.
As a master’s student
at UM’s TCAUP, this
fricher likes exploring
ideas of re-use and
re-appropriation,
sustainability, and
architecture’s impact on
human physiology. Out of
studio, she enjoys eating,
running, reading for
pleasure, maps, questions
and New York City. She
seriously dislikes
asparagus and spiders.
06

Le criminel essaie d’effacer toute
trace de son forfait, et ne veux
surtout pas qu’on le retrouve.
- Patrick Bouchain

>> statement
A paradoxical coupling of terms – the institutional with the
abandoned – Civic Friche refers to the tactical appropriation
of marginal sites for public function. Distinct from traditional
strategies of reuse, Civic Friche describes a new approach to
urbanism through civic initiative, temporary and interim uses,
and public participation.
This spring 17 students from the Taubman College of
Architecture + Urban Planning traveled to France and
Belgium to investigate the most important examples of this
phenomenon and to speak with the architects, landscape
architects, urban installation artists and politicians involved in
the design and implementation of Civic Friche strategies.
photo Talia Pinto-Handler
What they discovered is that Civic Friche is above all an
ideology. A term that resists translation (wasteland being its
most direct and reductive English counterpart), Friche has
been embraced as a opportunistic strategy with liberating
potential. Like a Gilles Clement landscape, an architecture
of friche speculates that the built environment can be set into
motion, cultivating emergent behaviors over an indeterminate
span of time.
A friche site, whether reappropriated or new, begins with an
intimate understanding of the physical and cultural context,
yet it assumes that things will change. New programs will
emerge. Cultural and economic shifts will invariably take
place. Technology will charge ahead. The architect, released
from the post of dogmatic creator, envisions solutions that
may be fragmented, temporary, cheeky, and even subversive.
CREATIVE DIRECTION
Anya Sirota | Jean Louis
Farges | Steven Christensen
SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR
Lauren Vasey
PHOTO EDITORS
Jackie Kow
Erika Lindsay
DIRECTING MANAGER
Nathaniel Doud
INFORMATION SPECIALIST
Kayla Lim
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Bruce Findling
FASHION EDITOR
Devon Stonebrook
09
CONTRIBUTING
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Ivan Adelson
Katie Baldwin
Lauren Bebry
Jordan Buckner
Noureen Dadani
Nathaniel Doud
Bruce Findling
Talia Pinto-Handler
Mo Harmon
Kayla Lim
Erika Lindsay
Jacqueline Kow
Matt Nickel
Brittany Roy
Devon Stonebrook
Lauren Vasey
Tyler Willis
GUEST ARTIST
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Marie Combes
Patrick Renaud
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Ivan Adelson
Katie Baldwin
Lauren Bebry
Jordan Buckner
Nathaniel Doud
Bruce Findling
Talia Pinto-Handler
Mo Harmon
Kayla Lim
Jacqueline Kow
Brittany Roy
Devon Stonebrook
Lauren Vasey
Tyler Willis
MAIN FEATURE CONTRIBUTORS
Lauren Vasey
Mo Harmon
COMMUNICATIONS
Lauren Bebry
PARTICIPANTS AND
LECTURERS
Patrick Beauce
Gaelle Breton
Patrick Bouchain
Alexandre Chemetoff
Julien Choppin
Marie Combes
Nicola Delon
Loïc Julienne
Stephane Malka
Laurence Mueller
Laurent Niget
Pascal Payeur
Lena Pasqualini
Francis Peduzzi
Christophe Ponceau
Eva Prabel
Patrick Renaud
Diane Rhyu
Naomi Sakamoto
SPECIAL THANKS
Bernard L. Mass Foundation
The International Institute
Experiential Learning Fund
Taubman College of
Architecture + Urban Planning
Spatial and Numeric Data
Services
All content © 2010
Civic Friche
All rights reserved.
>>more@ civicfriche.com

>> friche index
PARIS
Académie Fratellini
rue des cheminots
93210 Saint-Denis La Plaine
Patrick Bouchain and Loic Julienne
completed the circus school in
2002. Exceptional performance
and training facilities in Saint-
Denis, a suburb.
Le 104
104 Rue d’Aubervilliers
75019 Paris
The 2008 conversion of the Paris
city morgue into a flexible cultural
center. Designed by Jacques Pajot
and Marc Iseppi of Atelier
Novembre.
Palais de Tokyo
13, avenue du Président Wilson
75007 Paris
Lacaton & Vassal’s mecca for
contemporary art, canonical for its
aestheticism of efficiency. Raw,
like a space associated with artistic
production, it houses the finished
works du jour.
Musee du Quai Branly
37 Quai Branly
75007 Paris
Jacque Chirac’s cherished project,
the Musée du quai Branly was
completed in 2006 by Jean Nouvel
and has since been mired in
controversy. It houses France’s
collection of indigenous art,
sampled from a broad range of
cultures and civilizations. The
garden that slides beneath the
belly of the architectural beast was
completed by Gilles Clement. And
though much more tamed than his
other projects, is worth a visit.
Parc de la Villette
75019, Paris
A paradigmatic example of
contemporary architecture’s
struggle to resist the substantiation
of authority and to provide
opportunities for emergent
behavior, here with an emphasis of
landscape over built form.
Alexandre Chemetoff’s bamboo
garden is spectacular.
Pavillion de l’Arsenal
21 Blvd Morland
75004 Paris
The Pavillon de l’Arsenal is a
documentation and exposition
center for architecture and
urbanism in Paris. The museum
operates three exhibition spaces,
publishes reference books related
to Parisian architecture, history
and urban life, hosts forums
and lectures, rotates temporary
installations and generally attempts
to project a finger glued steadfast
on the pulse of Parisian life.
La Gare au Gorilles
metro corentin cariou
75019 Paris
This squat at a train station has
been transformed into a music
venue with an international line up
of performers.
Académie du
Spectacle Equestre
Grande Ecurie du Château de
Versailles
Avenue Rockfeller
78000 Versailles
Bartabas, the founder and director
of the Zingaro Equestrian Theater,
secured a govenment grant in 2003
to create this Equestrian school,
a training facility dedicated to
the art of dressage. The space is
completed by Patrick Bouchain and
Loic Julienne.
Cité nationale
de l’histoire de
l’immigration
293 avenue Daumesnil
75012 PARIS
Patrick Bouchain reworked the
interior of the France’s museum
of colonial history into exhibition
space for immigration history.
Additions to the building were
limited to code requirements.
Les Frigos
91 Quai Panhard et Levassor
75013 Paris
The city’s refrigerated warehouses
have been transformed into a
series of workspaces and offices.
Occassional open door events
transform the space into a
labyrinthine gallery.
La Miroiterie
88 rue de Ménilmontant
75020 Paris
A squat that has transformed
into a space for alterative music
forms: jazz, du hardcore, noise,
electronica, delirium.
Dock en Seine
34 Quai d’Austerlitz
75013 Paris
Jakob + MacFarlane designed
the Fashion and Design Institute
on the docks of Seine’s Left Bank.
The new green metal pipe structure
envelopes an existing 1907
concrete warehouse.
Jussieu l’Atrium
10 rue Cuvier
75005, Paris
Louis Paillard and L’Agence
Périphérique completed the
addition to the Jussieu campus in
2006.

NANTES
ENSA NANTES
École Nationale Supérieure
d’Architecture
Rue Massenet,
BP 81931 - 44319 Nantes
The architecture school, recently
completed by Lacaton & Vassal,
illustrates how space can be the
greatest of luxuries. The building,
borrowing from the logic of a
parking garage, inserts conditioned
program into double height
unconditioned space. Enviable.
Lieu Unique
2, Rue de la Biscuiterie BP 21 304
44013 Nantes Cedex 1
Patrick Bouchain’s biscuit factory
turned cultural center. A myriad of
program animates the place daily.
Very New York. Zero pretense.
La Nef
Machines de l’Ile de Nantes
Les Chantiers
Bd Léon Bureau - 44 200 Nantes
François Delarozière and Pierre
Orefice’s exploration of machine
objects and motion produces
a workshop and gallery where
visitors guided by machinists
work with fantastic mechanical
creations. And then there is a three
story elephant that walks along
the post-industrial waterfront,
passes a Jean Prouve building and
continues on along an Alexander
Chemetoff landscape.
L’Estuaire
Site of the Estuaire Biennale,
a contemporary art exhibition
that takes place every two years
between Nantes and Saint-Nazaire
(along the Loire estuary). The once
industrial landscape transforms
into a tourist destination.
SAINT
NAZAIRE
Le LIFE | Alvéole 14
Submarine Base – Bay 14
Boulevard de la Légion d’Honneur
44600 Saint-Nazaire
A Germany submarine base during
the Second World War, the site is
transformed by LIN Agency into
LiFE, International Space for
Emerging Arts. It is a new venue
dedicated to contemporary artistic
activities: visual arts, music,
architecture, the performing arts,
literature, film, video and new
media.
12

>> friche index continued
FRAMERIES
Le Pass
Parc d’aventures scientifiques
3 rue de Mons B-7080 Frameries
A former coal mine in a Belgian
town is transformed into a
children’s science museum.
Completed by Lauren Niget in
2004 with a master plan by Jean
Nouvel, the project situates a
large scale cultural attractor in a
dramatically depressed region.
Le Grand Hornu
Rue Sainte-Louise 82
7301 Hornu
A large scale coal mine
converted into a cultural center
for contemporary art and design.
Early phase of the design was taken
up by the local architect Henri
Guchez who set up his offices on
site. Pierre Hebbelinck completes
the restoration in 2002.
CALAIS
La Cité internationale
de la Dentelle et de la
Mode de Calais
135, Quai du Commerce
62100 CALAIS
Inaugurated in 2009, the lace
museum exhibits a regional
industry, production techniques
and its connection to contemporary
fashion and design. The addition
and renovation completed by Henri
Riviére et Alain Moatti features
and a new facade which recalls a
bodice. It’s pattern borrows from
the logic of the lace stock card.
Le Channel
173 boulevard Gambetta
BP 77, 62102 Calais
Le Channel, scène nationale de
Calais, headed by Francis Peduzzi
was completed as a collaborative
work by Patrick Bouchain and
François Delarozière. A largescale
slaughter house becomes
a space for performance, artistic
residence, street art, food, circus,
pyrotechnics and other forms of
creative speculation.
SAINT
ETIENNE
La Cité du design
3 Rue Javelin-Pagnon
42000 Saint-Etienne
Former site of an arms
manufacturer has been converted
into a design school. It also hosts
a design biennale (2010 opens
in November). LIN architects,
headed by Finn Geipel, worked on
the project between 2006-2009.
The essential elements of the
project consist of the restoration
of some buildings on the site, a
new 200x32 m building called La
Platine, an Observatory tower, two
Gardens, and the Place d’Armes,
a large public plaza. Alexander
Chemetoff has recently been hired
to work on the an urban design
project connecting the Cité du
design to the remainder of the city.
LYON
Opéra Nouvel
Opéra de Lyon - Place de la
Comédie - 69001 Lyon
The alarmingly disorienting opera
restoration by Jean Nouvel inherits
the architect’s name. Begun in
the mid-eighties, the project
is completed in 1993. Nouvel
tripled the space within the house
by excavating below ground to
create rehearsal space and, most
strikingly, by doubling the height of
the building by creating a steel and
glass barrel vault which hid the fly
tower as well as providing space
for the ballet company.
MARSEILLE
La Friche Belle de Mai
41 Rue Jobin
13003 Marseille
A tabacco factory is converted
into an office complex, restaurant,
exhibition galleries, roof gardens,
media center, performance and
rehearsal space, skate park. Home
to close to a hundred firms, the
friche block is Patrick Bouchain’s
ultimate project: an architecture
without architects. Bouchain
has been voted president of the
association, replacing Jean Nouvel,
and is handling the economic
development of the complex. Final
phase - architect turns developer.
13

For An Architecture
of Stylessness
L’architecture d’usager fabrique
du sur mesure. Elle évite la
reproduction d’un style de mode.
Elle suppose le bâtiment dandy,
autrement dit, la construction
seule dans son genre, qui, sans
ostentation, résiste au goût dominant
d’une époque, à l’avachissement
d’un temps, à l’uniformisation d’une
culture. Le dandysme architectural
récuse l’extravagance clinquante,
il refuse le parti pris original
pour la seul originalité, mais
il laisse la singularité et la
subjectivité produire leur effet dans
une construction manifeste à même
d’honorer une signature.
_Michel Onfray, Construire Autrement

>> civic friche featured artist
Though located just one metro stop outside of
the périphérique, the Combes & Renaud Studio in
Bagnolet is a respite from the density and promiscuity
of the Parisian quotidian. At the entry, a parking spot
has sprouted into a potted gardenscape. Within, a
hodgepodge of furnishings, tungsten lights, and an
assembly of images that questions the very nature of
photography in contemporary art. Marie Combes talked
with us about her work, her enviable audacity bordering
on insolence and where she thinks photography is
headed next.

F R A G M E N T I N D É T É R M I N É ,
FRAGMENT INDÉFINI
16

In her series, Interieurs, Marie Combes photographs architecture
as the archaic and the ruined, alluding to both Palladian
drawings and 17th century painting in mock romantic concern
for the eviscerated form. In so doing, Combes simultaneously
strips architecture of its typical decorum and liberates
photography from its documentarian pretexts. The result is a
composite fiction, a series of formal coincidences that frame and
construct new dynamic, non-existent spaces.
Combes shoots her architectural subjects in what she terms
“a non-hierarchical rampage”, moving through space and
concentrating on the experiential fragment. Later she scours
through her contract sheets selecting evocative adjacencies,
which she consequently prints in a diptych format. In other
words, she pairs only those images which appear back to
back on the contact sheet. Her process is thus one of imposed
discovery, productive fluidity and authorial abdication.
Interieurs pairs two perspectival fragments in order to produce
a third, wholly autonomous representation of space. The new
perspective is a spatial provocation: discordant floor plates,
compound light sources, the suggestion of folded planes, a
multiplicity of thresholds, and schizophrenic subjectivity. It is a
spatial assemblage whose meaning is solicited by the realm of
the non-image, by the in between, by the axis as fissure. In other
words, the connective tissue of the image is essential to the
geometric (re)ordering and choreography of the resulting space.
W h a t t h e s e s i t e s
have in common
i s t h a t t h e y a r e
f l e e t i n g . T h e y h a v e
been designed,
i n h a b i t e d , u s e d ,
t r a n s g r e s s e d ,
thwarted,
damaged, loved
and abandoned.
T h e y a r e w h a t w e
call “en friche” -
t h e y a r e w a i t i n g
f o r s o m e t h i n g t o
h a p p e n .
_interview by Anya Sirota
_portrait by Jean Louis Farges
_photos courtesy of Marie Combes
L e t ’ s t a l k a b o u t r u l e s . Fo r a p h o t o g r a p h e r y o u ’ v e s e t u p
a n u n u s u a l l y r i g o r o u s s e t o f p r o c e s s - b a s e d r u l e f o r y o u r
Interieurs project.
You’re right. My project is a bit analytical, even systemic. I am trying to order
a series of spatial revelations - that aren’t always transparent from the get go.
I have to be honest. I have series of recurring dreams where I enter a space,
abandoned or inhabited, and I begin to transcribe the experience using site,
memory - essentially an imaginary photogaphy.
I try to infuse my own work with this dreamscape. The Interieur project is a
performance. I perform an act which is the transcription of a space real or
imagined. And that is why it needs rules, this act needs parameters. I don’t want
to project a response - I want to discover a site. That is where the contact sheet
comes in. When I first develop a series on a contact sheet, and stick to the notion
that an image can only be composed through its apparent juxtaposition on the
sheet, I abdicate responsibility for the composition, and the image, in turn, gains
a level of autonomy. My images need to appear, even to me.

Yo u r s u b j e c t i s u l t i m a t e l y a r c h i t e c t u r a l . H o w d o y o u f i n d t h e
space - or does it find you?
Yes, I need an architectural subject. I need the play between darkness and light, the
tension between the exterior and the interior. The trace of human use. Even abuse.
But to find these sites, let’s say that I stumble upon these sites. I look for them in the
urban landscape. I look for them on the margins of the city. I also look in the country.
I know I have found one when I can sense an ephemeral quality that deserves to be
transcribed. What these sites have in common is that they are fleeting. They have been
designed, inhabited, used, transgressed, thwarted, damaged, loved and abandoned. They
carry the markings of their former uses; they are what we call “en friche” - they are
waiting for something to happen. They are recepticles of our collective memory and yet
they are in danger of dispearance. They are at risk of being demolished, wiped clean. They
are sites that I perceive to be in a state of danger. Danger of being forgotten. Danger
of recieving an unwarrented face lift. And then all of the traces... where will they go?
Images?
When I find a site like this, and it may be a rare siting, I will only go in with my camera. I
will not traverse the threshold with my eyes alone.
A n d y o u o n l y s h o o t a s i t e u p o n f i r s t p e r c e p t i o n . Yo u n e v e r
return? No second chance?
I am interested in the constructing and reconstructing the space of perception.
This space has to be unknown. So, yes, I enter a site with my camera just
once. My first perception of the site is the rawest, most immediate, free of
prejudice. I don’t know what I will find, and it is this act of discovery that is
being transcribed.That is the subject of my research.
The unknown is exciting. In particular, the idea of projected circulation and a
fragmented point of view. I am chasing images that escape me; it is a psychospatial
choreography and it is happening live. I am constructing a reality
that is non-representational, even when the isolated shots can be considered
objective, documentarian in a certain sense. In the end, the images are not a
repesentation of the site, they are projection of something Other.
S o e s s e n t i a l l y y o u a r e r e c o n s t r u c t i n g a f i c t i o n a l s p a c e - i s i t a
clandestine or explicit crtitique of the constructed?
No, no, that’s not it at all. Maybe I would just love to Practise architecture. But I am an
artist who uses photography as a construction tool. I am building the hidden room, wild
circulation, projecting an impossible play of light.
Is there a site that you would want to shoot? What’s next?
So many places have potential. Perhaps Detroit is next. The quality of its architecture. The
relationship of the built environment to the landscape. The scale of the place. It would be
a real challenge and I am tempted.

(…) L’intervalle ne se définit
spécialisation de ces deux faces-limites, perceptive
e t a c t i v e . I l y a l ’ e n t r e - d e u x . L ’ a f f e c t i o n , c ’ e s t
c e q u i o c c u p e l ’ i n t e r v a l l e , c e q u i l ’ o c c u p e s a n s l e
remplir ni le combler. Elle surgit dans le centre
d ’ i n d é t e r m i n a t i o n , c ’ e s t - à - d i r e d a n s l e s u j e t , e n t r e u n e
p e r c e p t i o n t r o u b l a n t e à c e r t a i n s é g a r d s e t u n e a c t i o n
h é s i t a n t e . E l l e e s t d o n c c o ï n c i d e n c e d u s u j e t e t d e
l ’ o b j e t , o u l a f a ç o n d o n t l e s u j e t s e p e r ç o i t l u i - m ê m e ,
ou plutôt s’éprouve et se ressent
« du dedans ».
-L’image mouvement, Gilles Deleuze
20

cheap thrills:
the aesthetic of thrift

_ story by tyler willis
_ photography by brittany roy and steven christensen
_miroiterie images courtesy of patrick renaud

>> objects
In 1917, Marcel Duchamp put a urinal
in a gallery. It became art. Is a
chair made from a shopping cart fit to
be deemed “industrial design”? In
marginal sites, the emergence of thrift
as an organizing ideology has begun
to invent new notions of high design.
Ranging from repurposed objects to the
use of humble materials, the message is
the same: the banal can be beautiful.
A common approach to this doctrine is
the “readymade” object: a familiar item
presented in an unfamiliar manner. For
example, Patrick Bouchain repurposes
large wooden cable spools as outdoor
tables at Le Channel. Plastic buckets
turned upside down become the seats.
Banal, industrial products are popular
candidates for reuse as they reflect
the humble sensibilities of marginal
sites. Even in Le Channel’s version of
an upscale restaurant, Bouchain uses
temporary construction site lighting,
affixed horizontally to the walls.
In some cases, the “readymade” may
be physically modified to perform a
function quite different from its
original usage. At La Miroiterie, a
shopping cart becomes a chair after a
few bends and modifications.
This philosophy of thrift can even
extend to newly constructed objects
through simple materials and assembly.
Bouchain’s treatment of theater
seating throughout his body of work

industrial design or
artisanal salvage?
rethinking the banal and
finding embedded value.

consistently exemplifies this. Bench
seating, simple wood construction,
and utilitarian cushions combine to
create a no-frills theater environment.
The exterior benches at Le Channel
take a similar approach, albeit with
different materials: merely pieces of
sturdy fabric loosely suspended between
metal piping. The effect is seemingly
effortless, illustrating the cheeky
intelligence of humility.
Not only can salvage be design, the
ideology of this aesthetic can produce
highly effective and unique items. An
object as ubiquitous as a shopping cart
can be resurrected with both humor and
function through smart design. Indeed,
the extraordinary is not so far from
the ordinary after all.

S
I
T
E
M
A
R
K
E
Rstory by Jackie Kow
photo Belle de Mai Jackie Kow

New architecture, shiny and bold, is an easy attractor. It’s new and
breeds curiosity. But when Old is the new New…
what’s the attractor? Can a friche site without signage be civic at all?
There is nothing revolutionary about posting a sign, be it for a garage sale or
a casino in Las Vegas, and you don’t need a degree in Semiotics to do it. But
when the sign marks an uneasy transformation or attempts to mitigate a site
of contention, things can get a little more sticky. Where is the right balance
between the old and the new? How do you convince potential visitors that they
should say have lunch at an abandoned slaughterhouse or dance at a World
War II German submarine base? The potential solutions are as diverse as the
sites that they mark. One thing is clear, without signage, marginal sites are lost.
At La Channel in Calais artist François Delarozière
transforms the old water tower into a belvedere.
His style is all baroque theatrics, bone metaphors and garish reminders
of the site’s former use. Juxtaposed against the banal suburban
grain of the houses just beyond Le Channel’s wall, it is a clear that
something Other is happening. During events the tower transforms into a
pyrotechnic installation, calling attention to itself in discomforting ways.
In Saint Nazaire, Lin Architects converted a former Nazi submarine
base that was in service throughout WWII into a venue for experimental music
and culture. Known as the Saint-Nazaire Alvéole 14, the site is designed to
serve as the nexus for the new Ville-Porte plan, in other words, to symbolically
connect the urban center and the troubled industrial port. To call attention
to the project they place a sphere, recuperated from a German airport
tower on the roof of the mega-structure. They call it “think tank”. It is
a marker which unapologetically dememorializes
the site, turning to German post-industrial detritus for signage in a
formerly-occupied city. Some signs are permanent. Others are temporary
installation. In the case of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the marker
is an inhabitable module that is place on the roof . It teeters on the
very edge facing the seine, in conversation with the Eiffel Tower. The module’s
program is variable. Last year a temporary hotel room to be rented by the
night. This year a restaurant for fourteen strangers who eat at the same table.
Some sites have what can be considered a pre-existing marker that the new
signage must contend with. Take, for example, le Pass in the Framerie, a coal
mining town in Belgium. A 64 meter tall tower exists on the site, a remnant
of the coal mining process. Hard to compete with in scale. But it is the sign
of the old and the site must announce the new. As a result, the project
architect, Lauren Niget transforms an entire building into a billboard,
plastering its surfaces with everchanging announcements. Perhaps the most
efficient sign is the most obvious. At the Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille,
Patrick Bouchain ironically turns to a literal billboard. Afixed to
the roof of the tallest building in the complex it signals “eventscape” the
to the TVG trains arriving into the Gare Saint Charles. Bold move.

30

>> food
eat me i’m
/story by Lauren Bebry
/photophraphy by Nathan Doud, Brittany Roy and Lauren Bebry
/recipe and menu courtesy of Alain Moitel of Les grandes Tables du Channel
33

Architects have long had a
love affair with food; its
immediacy, ephemerality,
constructability,
composition, decadence,
and, gasp, tectonics, are
undeniable. Food can also
serve as an attractor,
animating a marginal site
and creating social space.
beautiful
34

Menu
Croustillant d’asperge
Palleron cuisson 72 heures à 72°degrés
(Cuisson dans une poche au bain-marie)
Refroidit, saisi à la plancha
servi avec une polenta crémeuse
et tagliatelles de légumes croquants
Crémeux au chocolat, et café,
et son sirop de poivres, sirop de zestes
d’oranges
35

When Patrick Bouchain
and Loic Julienne set up shop at Le
Channel in Calais, the first thing
they did was build a makeshift
“cabana” to house offices, gathering
space and a canteen. Food, from
the get go, was a crucial component
for activating the communal social
potential on the site. Over time, the
canteen developed into something
more orchestrated and refined, but
its core value to the programming of
a friche site remains unchanged.
Over the course of our journey,
we had the opportunity to dine at
a number of eateries connected
to projects completed by the
Construire office. And it was
clear that an organizing strategy
was operating. The spaces were
communal, informal, idiosyncratic,
spacious, urbane and clad with a
minimum level of ornamentation.
But to say that the detailing was
minimalist would be to overlook
the exceptional precision of the
scenography.
In stark opposition to the pomp and
stuffiness conjured by the Michelin
star system, these restaurants are
designed to blend all strata of
French society into a surprising
communal cocktail of food and
friche. The factory canteen meets
the corner bistrot, and the guests
happen to be the performance
artists working in the space next
door or the construction workers
finishing up a refurbishment project.
Plus the food is delicious.
At the Le Channel chef Alain
Moitel prepared a special meal
for our group. Knowing that we
were American, Moitel chose
beef. Slowly roasted for over 72
hours with the perfect mixture of
seasoning. this decadent entree
was so tender that it could be cut
with a fork. Eating it was an allencompassing
experience: the
scent, the beautiful presentation,
the sensational flavor. Enjoying
this meal, it became clear to me
that cooking and designing are
united through their processes.
Both aim to surmount challenges
in the same ways: considering a
client, examining myriad elements,
trial and error, attention to detail,
and experimentation. This process
often provokes finished dishes along
the way that are in no way near
what was intended, but, maybe not
as often, it also produces amazing
accidents that can change the
way the entire problem is seen.
Different each time, and perfected
just a little bit more with each
attempt, this knawing process is
the true challenge, providing a
satisfaction when its consequences
are so enjoyably consumed by its
audience.
The meal at Le Channel was
incredibly gratifying and intriguing.
How did they make that? In fact,
what was the process exactly?
While it kept me guessing, what
I appreciated even more the care
put into it. I could actually taste
each decision that went into the
preparation.

patial mechanics

_story by Nathan Doud
_photography by Nathan Doud, Erika Lindsay, Brittany
Roy, Devon Stonebrook and Jackie Kow
_photographic collage courtesy Nathan Doud

>> steampunk-ed
From two blocks away, passing the
construction site of a trendy new condo highrise,
you hear the roar of a great beast. From
a block away, next to the shuttered warehouse
building, constant whining and rumbling noises
become apparent to you. Then, suddenly, in the
middle of this industrial cityscape, a figure
emerges that ignites your imagination and
awakens your curiosity and wonder: a giant
elephant. Indeed, a pachyderm of prehistoric
proportions. Here, in the middle of a French
industrial city of over 275,000 people, is an
animal that is living, breathing, and clearly
not supposed to be here.
Or is it?
Upon inspection, this beast is not actually
living and breathing. It is a carefully
assembled collection of wood and steel (and
other miscellaneous materials), wires and
pistons, motors and wheels. It is a large-scale
creation born of the dedication of a team of
designers and craftsmen. It is run by a staff

of operators and maintenance technicians. It
is, in fact, a machine. And as such has as
much right as any to claim this area as its
home.
Upon a closer inspection, however, it turns
out it is living and breathing. Not in the
strict biological sense, of course. But it does
have breath, given to it by a combination of
air compressors, pneumatic pistons and a highdecibel
speaker system. And it does have life,
given to it by a combination of well crafted
and articulated appendages, adroit operation
and a crowd of willing, believing onlookers.
It is the audience that finally breathes life
into this mish-mash of mechanics, willing to
look past the clearly segmented limbs, the
visible structural supports, the giant tires
that allow its movement and the engine that
ultimately gives it forward momentum. We see
what we believe, and we believe what we see.
Then again, maybe it isn't being able to
look past the obvious mechanics that allows
us to believe. Perhaps it is the direct,
unaccountable presence of them that allows
us to convince ourselves that what we see in
front of us is real. We are not given a clear
elephant. We are given clues, impressions of
elephantiness, juxtaposed against elements that
are very un-elephanty. These deliberate holes
and intentional incongruities confound our
notions of what we see and what we know, and
force our imaginations to rev up and reconcile
the situation. The wonder of La Machine,
the creators of this and many other wildly
fantastic contraptions, is that they stimulate
the imagination by egging it on and allowing
it freedom.
Their creations are not attempts to visually
replicate living things. They are attempts to
follow in the footsteps of Dr. Frankenstein
and bring inanimate objects to life through
action. Only instead of lightning, they infuse
their monsters with the energy from our
imaginations.
40

SPACE IS LUXURY
41

/story by Jean Louis Farges
/photography by Brittany Roy, Nathan Doud,
Mo Harmon, Devon Stonebrook, Ivan Adelson,
Bruce Findling
... The brand new architecture school in nantes is the magnificent synthesis
of fundamental work carried out over the last twenty years. There is notably
the subtle combination of interior and exterior spaces... [Lacaton & Vassal]
have succeeded in making this facility a centerpiece of the urban laboratory
of the ile de nantes. this simple an and complex, dense and fluid building
is much more than a school. It is a place that can be fully appropriated by
urban dwellers as much as by students...
- Francis Rambert
Director of the Institut Francais d’Architecture
Lacaton & Vassal have made a practice of non-object archtecture at a time
when objects reached cult status. They avoid making models to avoid
making sculpture. they habitually explain that their buildings work from
the inside out, that their form is a utilitarian after-thought. Nonetheless,
their architecture can hardly be called minimalist. They plainly strive to
intelligently deliver the maximum punch using constrained means. And,
perhaps most importantly, they project how their buildings might be
appropriated in the future, an act of radical functionalism and creative
humility.
On the day that we visited the architecture school in nantes, Anne Lacaton
was teaching a housing seminar. her students, just in from Madrid, were
squatting a large double-height open area on the third floor. Some of the
sliding facade panels were pulled open allowing in breezes and views of
the Loire River to create the sensation that this impromptu studio was
neither in nor out.

Gaelle Breton, an associate professor at the Ecole d’Architecture in Nantes
since 2008, walked us through the building. A registered architect in
France, but also trained as a carpenter, she unravelled the logic of the
building in a rivetting way. The architects, she explained, were asked to
construct 10,000 square meters of program (classrooms, studios, library,
computer center, workshops, cafeteria, etc.) on a 5,000 square foot
lot. Instead of a typical building, Lacaton & Vassal proposed a parking
garage on steroids clad in a greenhouse sweater. In other words, a superstructure
with three dilated decks, inserted program and a sliding plastic
panel skin. The conditioned program is introduced using a lighter steel
structure and placed in the space between the concrete slabs. The twolevel
mezzanines are treated as buildings in miniature with the “left over”
or unconditioned interstitial space transformed into a virtual urban plaza.
Public. Visible. Shared.Infinitely transformable. Ready to be appropriated
as need arises. The result is a plethora of flexible, unprogrammed space.
Enviable. Luxurious.
Having taught architecture and design studios in Lille, Marne-la-Vallée,
Cornell University, the University of Montreal, the Ecole Spéciale
d’Architecture, and Paris-Malaquais, Gaelle Breton is deeply familiar
with the spatial requirements of a design school, and this building, she
was happy to report, provided her with just enough space. “It encourages
instructors to have more public reviews, and students to create more
audacious, larger scale installations, to dare and take up the volume that
has been alloted. It is tempting, and challenging all at once.”
44

I think luxury is not related to materiality, it’s just some incredible
situations. And as architects, you have to produce incredible
situations.
-- Lacaton & Vassal

VICE

@@
LU
COMBAT DE CATCH À MOUSTACHE
Un sport sans concession, où le but ultime est
d’humilier l’adversaire à coups de
crayon ! Le principe est simple : 6 à 8
dessinateurs, dont l’identité est dissimulée
sous d’audacieux costumes de catcheurs et
d’imposantes moustaches, se livrent à des
duels graphiques sans aucune pitié sur des
thèmes imposés par le public. Ce même public
vote à la fin de chaque round pour élire le
meilleur dessin. «Oeil pour oeil, dent pour
dent » ? Non, le catch de dessin c’est : “les
deux yeux pour un oeil, et toute la mâchoire
pour une dent” !!
FIGHT TO CATCH A MOUSTACHE
A sport without compromise, where the
ultimate goal is to humiliate the opponent
with the shot of a pencil! The principle is
simple: 6-8 designers, whose identities
are concealed by the daring costumes of
wrestlers and huge mustaches, engage in
duels without mercy on graphic themes
imposed by the public. This same audience
votes at the end of each round to elect the
best design. “An eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth?” No, the wrestle of drawing
is: “two eyes for an eye, and the jaw for a
tooth!”
http://www.viceland.com/fr/Divers/CP%20VICE@LU%24.2.pdf
Google translate
WORDS BY IVAN ADELSON + TALIA PINTO-HANDLER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TALIA PINTO-hANDLER +
iVAN ADELSON + mATT nICKEL
TEXT BY JORDAN bUCKNER
48

abrasive. absurd. abusive. adult. adventurous. alarming.
alive. amplified. anarchic. apathetic. artful. assuming.
awake. bellicose. bizarre. bloated. bob. bold. brazen.
cantankerous. chaotic. clever. colorful. comical. composed.
conflicting. confusing. consuming. contaminated.
contentious. contradictory. ¬¬-copulative. corrupt.
counterproductive. crass. creative. crowded. crude.
cultural. curious. decomposed. delicious. democratic.
demonic. demonstrable. deviant. dirty. diseased.
disguised. disorderly. distinct. disturbing. domineering.
dramatic. dreamy. drunk. dry. dubious. earnest.
eccentric. editorial. elaborate. el pepito. excited. exotic.
exposed. exquisite. fair. feral. fetishistic. forceful. foutre
d’argent. fiery. free. frontal. furry. genital. gestural.
glittery. gritty. grotesque. haggard. hairy. hectic.
humorous. hot. immitigable. impervious. improvised.
insane. invading. invigorating. inviting. jocular. john
super wayne. jovial. juvenile. kinky. le reverend 666.
l’equipe des gentils. loose. loud. louis vengeur. massive.
mechants. melodramatic. messy. mocking. momentous.
monsieur moulebite. morbid. muddy. natural. neurotic.
nude. offensive. obnoxious. obtuse. operant. opposite.
orchestral. ostentatious. overwhelming. painful.
pathetic. patriotic. peculiar. perpetual. pink. plastic.
playful. poetic. political. profane. promiscuous.
provoking. psychotic. pulsating. questionable. radical.
rambunctious. rarified. robust. rude. rudimentary.
sacrificial. salty. schismatic. sensational. sexual.
smelly. social. spiritual. sticky. stuffy. stupid. suited.
superfluous. tell-tale. tenacious. tommy. torrential. trite.
tumultuous. uncut. unethical. unique. vibrant. vile.
voracious. vulgar. whistle-stop. wild. wrapped. zesty.

50

Le Lieu Unique (LU) – a play on words
between a popular biscuit and “a unique place” - is possibly
one of architect Patrick Bouchain’s best achievements. Lieu
Unique performs as a cultural stage for the city of Nantes in
France, providing a a space for artists and locals to mix . LU is a
stage and a laboratory for performance, music, dance, theater,
even philosophy. It is an installation space, a street, a child care
center, urban learning center. And it is a place to eat. To eat
cheap. To eat well. To meet in an atmosphere that is unusually
multiplicitous, democratic, porous, and without pretense. At
night the Le Lieu Unique is were the cool kids hang.
Le Lieu Unique winks knowlingly at its former program - the old
Lefevre-Utile biscuit factory, while at the same time creating an
atmosphere that is anything but fussy or nostalgic. It is Nantes’s
quintessential living room. Open to all.
LU’s tower acts as a beacon for the building and arguably the
city as a whole. The tower draws attention to the building, and
its colorful design during the day and illumination at night mark
this building as an active place. A replica of the original tower, its
restauration is the first measure taken to revive the site.
Patrick Bouchain preserved most of the building in its original
form. Any changes are rendered explicit. New materials stand in
stark contrast to the old - illustrating that while memory is crucial
to the architectural fabric, it should never stunt transformation,
new program, invention, progress. Materials are layered and
juxtaposed with insolence and humor. In the main lobby space,
all of the new programmatic insertions are clearly demarcated
and transparent, the partition walls made of commercial wire
fencing. The main performance hall’s accoustic paneling is
cobbled out of recycled oil barrels and west african rugs .
The building is situated with its main facade facing a canal,
creating an active gathering space on the waterfront. The
restaurant and bar both break the threshold of the building and
stretch to the water, creating a curving streetscape - a stage of
sorts where all social classes can merge . All doors to the building
stay open during hours of operation. With no monumental entry
- people slip in and out of the building seemlessly.

morgue?
is it okay to shimmy at the
Le 104
/story by Kayla Lim
/photography Kayla Lim,
Ivan Adelson and Brittany Roy

The ateliers @ the CENTQUATRE
Eight atelier spaces are reserved for a
artist residents, and designed to animate
the site during off hours.
The signage is clinical. The spaces sterile.
It is difficult to envision how artists
might be able to appropriate a site with
this level of resolution for their own
visions and purposes.

Le CENTQUATRE’s Café Caché, French for
Hidden Cafe.
The CNC routered skin was designed by
Sebastien Wierinck (artist and former
resident of the CENTQUATRE), the café
features a large outdoor terrace in a paved
courtyard and provides direct access onto
the rue d’Aubervilliers.
56

Sure you can shimmy at the morgue.
Shimmy, break dance, rage,
nosh, explore. Anything goes at
CENTQUATRE. This art center is
located in Paris’ nineteenth
arrondissement, one of the
capital’s famously botched urban
design projects. It posits itself
as an art venue for international
installations, video projection,
theatre, and music, as well as
a community gathering space for
residents of the neighborhood.
Until 1993, the French State held
a monopoly on funeral services.
Meaning, the manufacturer of coffins
and hearses, the services of bearers
– were all managed by the state.
Once funeral activities in France
became privatized, the morgue slowed
production and ultimately closed
its doors in 1997. At the height
of its operations, it had employed
1400 people and provided services to
thousands of the deceased.
Transformed in 2008 by Jacques Pajot
and Marc Iseppi of Atelier Novembre
into a beacon of culture and taste,
it has now been sterilized. So much
so, that you easily forget that this
was once the site where the city’s
dead were brought. In fact, it is
difficult to imagine that the spaces
were once used for an alternative
program: horse stables, hairdresser
salons, warehouses, and offices.
Today, the CENTQUATRE is organized
around an open interior passage
with minimal programmatic
intervention. The wings of the
existing structure house galleries,
commercial space, projection rooms,
artist’s workshops, and a cafe. All
impeccably redone.
The main atrium space is stark,
bright, white, and lined with
stores, a daycare, and auditoriums.
The atrium also features a floating
stage where you can dance, meditate,
or view art installations Below
the floating stage, in the belly of
the morgue, you can view pieces of
art in the dark former stables.
It is here in these stable, where
you’ll experience the little memory
of the place that hasn’t been

expunged. Once you venture out of
the basement, you’ll find yourself
in another vast, barren space where
flexible uses are encouraged, though
rarely spotted. As you make your way
into the majestically scaled outdoor
square, peak your head into some of
the smaller exhibition spaces in the
old storerooms for a more intimate
experience. If you’re lucky, you’ll
even stumble upon the Hidden Café
which offers a place for artists
and art enthusiasts to discuss the
current exhibitions.
Although the idea of CENTQUATRE
presents itself as a vibrant center
for culture, in reality, the project
is vast and sterile.
Shimmying may be allowed, but
would you really want to? It is a
project where the great majority
of the budget was dedicated to the
rehabilitation and decoration of the
site. As a consequence, little was
left to support emergent programs or
public venues. In fact, this was the
only site that we visited that had
no connection to an emergent program
or a former use. As a consequence,
the site feels a bit alien to its
urban context.
The site needs to be defibrillated
back to life, because to be honest,
it may likely have been more active
when it functioned as a morgue.
According to CENTQUATRE’s history,
the employees of the morgue even
participated in a company football
team and orchestra. There were
people working at the morgue and on
call twenty-four hours a day, and it
is this around the clock liveliness
that present-day CENTQUATRE
desperately needs.
Recently the direction at the
CENTQUATRE has changed and we are
looking forward to seeing how the
site will develop in the future.
Above: Exhibition Desplazamientos / Déplacements
as part of the Ten Years of Generaciones’s
contemporary art competition.
58

>> music
GARE AU GORILLE
>> objec

/story by Katie Baldwin
/photography Noureen Lakhani, Brittany Roy,
Talia Pinto-Handler
Across the street from the Crimee metro stop in Paris there
is a large iron gate, opened just a crack to allow curious
passers-by the chance to catch a momentary glimpse
inside. Others, who know their destination well, confidently
venture inside and greet their friends with shouted hellos
and riotous laughter. This is the Gorilla Train Station, a
cultural refugee camp located along an abandoned railway
line in the nineteenth arrondissement. Inside, a massively
diverse crowd is soaking up the unique vibe of this rare
anomaly in the urban fabric, and celebrating the profound
sense of personal liberty this place conjures up.
We enter behind Marie Combes, who is no virgin to this
territory. She is wearing black jeans and a black leather
jacket. Her curls are dancing in the breeze as she makes
her way up the gradual slope from street to station. Marie
is stopped by two mustacioed security guards and asked
to place her bag on an artists light table for screening.
After several minutes of confusion Marie is told to look at a
computer monitor and explain to the guards what is in her
bag. The screen is black (it lacks an electrical source) and
we soon catch on that very little can be taken as fact in this
magical place.
ts
We are welcomed into a courtyard that is lined with groups
of people eating baguettes and enjoying the wines they
brought from home. There is hardly a bare sliver of paved
stone along which to walk towards the interior space. Once
inside, we are overwhelmed by the pitch black while live
music envelopes our senses. When we have had enough
of the crowd’s unpredictable dance moves, we explore
the exterior once again. For every one person sitting, two
are standing. All are conversing openly. The theme for the
night is Aéroport aux Gorilles. The bartenders are dressed in
70’s attendant uniforms, while pilots in bomber jackets and
boxer shorts strut about.
The sun goes down and the projector comes on. The
building that once housed the music and the darkness and
the dancing has now become the projection screen. The
pilots struggle with technical difficulties, and we realize that
this is no professional operation, just a group of people
having some fun. We are watching program emerge and it
is quite beautiful. We are the program. We are exercising
cultural liberty. 60

ARCHITECTURE
WITHOUT
ARCHITECTS 3.0
/BY BRITTANY ROY
/PHOTOGRAPHY DEVON
STONEBROOK, BRITTANY ROY +
JACKIE KOW

“we are not interested in the finished
product since it is never finished. we are
interested in the process. belle de mai is
pure collective process.”
- Loïc Julienne

In Marseille, France’s largest port city, you’ll find one of Patrick
Bouchain’s latest and arguably most ambitious projects. It’s title
cuts straight to the point: La Friche. Here, a former tobacco factory
has been transformed into an idiosyncratic space with theaters,
offices, artist studios, a restaurant, and a skate park. At night the
site becomes a venue for concerts, dance performances, eating,
gatherings, salsa, and a myriad of other activities.
At first glance, the location for La Friche may seem anything but
ideal. Situated away from the popular Old Port and abutting the
TVG rail lines, it is removed from local transportation networks and
animated pedestrian routes. It is, in fact, a cultural and economic
oasis located in the middle one of the poorest arrondisements of
Marseille. How is it that this isolated venue draws 300 workers on
a daily basis? And what makes this cultural attractor so undeniably
attractive? La Friche is a complex network of thinkers, participants,
performers, entrepreneurs and interested people spearheaded
by the French architect Patrick Bouchain. Part networker, part
coordinator, part politician, Bouchain is a visionary who’s taken
the role of the architect far beyond the confines of design.
La Friche is a project that began with a group of cultural actors
who were permitted access to this abandoned tobacco factory in
order to create their projects. This community group later became
known as the SCIC which has now voted Bouchain into the post of
“President”. The group has secured a 45 year lease from the city.
The strategy works something like this: a building is handed over
to a group of cultural actors who are then permitted to transform
and market the space how they see fit and in response to a complex
matrix of community requirements. In this networking role,
Bouchain helps make connections and negotiations between the
SCIC and government agencies, harnessing the energy of emergent
programs into viable solutions for this formerly marginal site.

Instead of imposing a monolithic design on this complex site,
Bouchain mobilized different artists and thinkers to contribute
their idiosyncratic ideas to the master plan of the site. The result is
heterogeneous fusion of programs and interventions. Take the entry
sequence, for example. BMI, the skateboarding association, was
invited in to design a skate park in the central courtyard. Borrowing
fragments of favorite urban skateboarding landscapes across the
globe, they designed a composite skate park which visitors are invited
to traverse on their way to the public venue above. A local artist
created a graffiti wall, which frames the skate park and holds back
the TGV rail lines. Once you reach the second-story terrace level,
prefabricated containers serve as offices for the associations based
on the site. Installation artists inhabit the roofscape of an adjacent
building, testing new ideas for landscapes and video projection. The
very people using and programming the site become responsible for
its design, and the architect in this case oversees the strategy for the
ensemble as a composite piece.
To manage the financial plan for the development of the site,
Bouchain hired a fiscal spitfire and an employee of the Bank of
France, Karen Bouvet. Her role is to secure government funding for
the continued development of the site. Bouvet is currently in the
process of negotiating with the city to create a new bus route that
would connect the La Friche at Belle de Mai to the center of the
Marseille, making the site more accessible to the public.
Patrick Bouchain’s political role at the La Friche is critical.
Bouchain was responsible for helping integrate La Friche into the
Euroméditeranée Project and the European Capitol of Culture
project. Participating in these large scale developement projects
ensured that La Friche received significant funding as well as media
coverage, reinforcing the credibility of the project at regional,
national, and international scales.
Patrick Bouchain is an architect, who by taking on a number of roles
(developer, political advisor, site manager, fundraiser, performer),
designs urban conditions as much as he designs buildings. His projects
are infinitely dependent on a network of people: collaborators,
government officials, residents, associations, artists. With the network
in place, La Friche at Belle de Mai becomes a fully activated urban
node where any number of activities can take place and a framework
that can shift and adapt to changing community needs. Not to mention
the site doubles as one of the best salsa joints in the city.

>> coming soon
Patrick Renaud is a photographer and installation artist.
His work transforms the marginal and the overlooked into
suggestively eerie scenarios that undermine the very nature
of the constructed, the pictoresque and the normative. Most
recently in collaboration with Marie Combes, Patrick has
begun to investigate what they have termed “unstill images”.
Projections produced through photo montage, these works play
with ephemerality, living matter and site.
Currently, Patrick is working on a new video installation project.
The working title, Manoeuvre, alluding to the intersection
between creative and laborous production, unfolds on the
site of a neglected factory over a thirty year period. He has
documented this rural friche from its initial state of abandon
to its final state of vegetal takeover. What follows is Patrick’s
statement, a work in progress, an ordering, a virtual scenario
that considers the nature of architectural erasure in the
landscape.
/scenario courtesy of Patrick Renaud
/archival photography courtesy John Oliver
/dyptique courtesy Patrick Renaud
/text by Anya Sirota

Scénario
Manoeuvre
L’usine abandonnée comme une dépouille retourne au silence des champs.
Elle a accueilli sur ses murs des peintures maladroites, enfantines
qui racontaient d’autres pays, d’autres animaux, d’autres arbres.
Parfois elle dissimule aux regards des amours rapides.
Certains viennent, cassent les vitres, ce qu’ils peuvent démolir.
Ça commence souvent ainsi des lieux abandonnés, livrés à une
lapidation, à la rage contre l’édifice. L’usine reçoit des coups,
elle vibre, raisonne de cette haine. Elle garde dans son silence
meurtri cette violence qui veut la voir tomber. Qu’elle soit au sol,
en tas, effondrée sur elle-même, ce qu’ils veulent c’est l’écrouler,
la démolir, chercher ses points faibles pour faire tomber un mur,
n’importe quoi, tout est bon pour précipiter sa chute. Pourtant
elle n’a jamais été arrogante, juste dressée comme ça au milieu des
champs pour le travail.
Puis, ils ne sont plus venus, ou rarement, une longue agonie a
commencé entre ses ouvertures béantes. La pluie, le vent, le froid qui
éclatent les pierres continuent le travail de démolition.
Plus tard, timidement quelques plantes se sont installées parmi ses
décombres. Ce fut une colonisation lente, âpre pour ces espèces qui
commencent. Mais entre les briques, les tuiles un petit espace suffit
à la graine pour pousser. L’usine a accueilli des petits rongeurs,
des lézards trouvaient là des cachettes. Des orties, des buddleias
ont commencé à pousser. Les oiseaux sont venus. Un début de vie
fragile s’est installé. Difficilement bien sûr, certains ont réussi à
s’implanter et beaucoup sont morts. Ils ont grandi, se sont développés
lentement, très lentement, mais le temps végétal n’est pas celui des
hommes. Ils ont fait un manteau de feuillage pour protéger l’usine des
fortes chaleurs, en hiver ils se déshabillent et le soleil réchauffe
ses vieilles pierres.
Parfois des machines viennent jusque-là pour vider leurs citernes.
L’usine souffre dans ses fondations de brûlures insupportables, elle
sent ces liquides qui s’infiltrent dans le sol, empoisonnent et
tuent. Elle sait que tout retournera à la forêt, les arbres finiront
pargagner. Ils pousseront dans son squelette, l’envahiront, même là où
était son coeur, déjàses membres épars se couvrent de jeunes pousses.
74

>> opinion
The problem with operating the former headquarters of the German
Kriegsmarine as a public gathering center is that the base was never
meant as an inclusive meeting spot. As it turns out, common practice for
the construction of military structures during World War II centered on
the philosophy of keeping the enemy outside, not inviting them in for an
evening of contemporary arts and music. Though German U-boats won’t
be buzzing in and out of St. Nazaire any time soon, the immense concrete
structure has withstood the last 70 years without any apology of its former
life. It is a fortress of epic proportions, and this re-allocation from military
base to gallery and concert space has forced it into a state of awkward
existence...one that is trying to please a new generation of city planners and
event organizers.
>> endno
The key to understanding the appropriate re-allocation of a World War II
era U-Boat Base is to first look at ‘how’ the work conveys meaning before we
look at ‘what’ it conveys. Large concrete walls several feet thick, scale that
dwarfs all surrounding structures coupled with a purely functional aesthetic
define the heavy handed vernacular. The elements which answer the
question as to how Alveole 14 conveys meaning are not variable, and thus
neither are the answers to what meanings it invokes. Feelings of exclusion,
strength, power, and stability are immediately injected into the pedestrian
who sets eyes on the immense structure. Though it is obvious to see why
any nation would be eager to turn an enemy fortress into a much more
benevolent civic gathering space, the transformation here does little to take
advantage of what actually exists.
What if this ex-military base of the once mighty Kriegsmarine was taken at
face value? What if the re-allocation was one that fit into the original agenda
of exclusion, strength, and power? On the one extreme, the base could
become a massive tenant improvement project for the elite tycoon who
wishes to send an ultimate message to the world in terms of their dominance
of the free market. A luxury hotel would also be in line with this direction of
thought, as the exclusiveness and intimidation of the structure would surely
keep those less fortunate at bay, much like a fortress for the rich (in fact,
such a project had been successfully implemented at ‘No Mans Land Fort’
off the coast of England). On the other hand, it would not be too out of line
to suggest the base become a detention center for political prisoners and
other high profile detainees.
Just as the Roman columns of banks, universities, and government
buildings send out a sense of security and longevity, so too can the timetested
concrete walls of Alveole 14. Though historical association with the
war will ultimately sway public opinion on what the base can or cannot
become, architects and planners need to be more careful in what they deem
is appropriate for transforming structures from one meaning into another.

seven
meters
tes
thick
*
/commentary by Bruce Findling
/photography by Tyler Willis and
Steven Christensen
*
depth of the concrete shell @ Alveole14
78

>> feature

JEUDI NOIR
SQUATS
PLACE DES
VOGSES
/story by Lauren Vasey
/interview with Lauren Vasey and Mo Harmon
/photography Lauren Vasey, Mo Harmon,
Brittany Roy, Talia Pinto-Handler
In the center of Paris, in the fourth arrondisement, is Place des Vosges, a royal
square built and designed in the 17th century by Louis XIII. Stylistically, the square
was unprecedented. Not only did it predate many subsequent manicured gardens
throughout France and Europe, but the park’s design included close to two dozen
identical buildings around its perimeter, each with matching brick facades, steeply
pitched blue slate roofs, and vaulted arcades. The notion that a cityscape could be
constructed using a codified system of aesthetics was adapted and perpetuated by
subsequent designers and planners, most notably the Baron Haussman. As an icon,
the square represents the standard of traditionalism and conformity that resonates so
profoundly in the French culture.
Since the mid 1950’s, Place des Vosges has been classified a historical monument
and consequently retains its original splendor. Though the residencies are not solely
populated by the aristocracy as once intended, they do accommodate the very
affluent with high priced retail, restaurants, and museums. But the interior of one
building, Number 1bis along the southern edge of the square, diverges from its
homogenous and opulent neighbors. On the inside of this building lives a collective, a
group of squatters, who inhabit the hotel particulier illegally.
As the story goes, at the turn of the centuty No. 1bis was owned by a banking
heiress and her husband. Due to his ailing health, and later, her deteriorating mind,
the couple left the building in early 1960’s, never to return. The residence was
abandoned, left untouched for 40 years in a city notorious for its incorrigible homeless
population. When the public found out about the abandonment of the building,
outrage precipitated into action. In November of 2009, a group of individuals from the
organization Jeudi Noir moved into the building to stage a protest.
82

This page from top:
Interior staircase
Meeting room
Public entry
Next page from top:
New public entry with mattress
springs
Apartment door
Collective stair
Now the story of the squat at Place des Vosges is one of
public fodder: tourists knock on the door to see the interior,
and are frequently obliged and given tours. The squat is
not a typical case of seizure, but an icon of a movement
that demands more affordable housing options for the less
affluent people of Paris.
As a studio, we decided to visit the site because of its
indelible relation to the notion of civic friche: abandoned
buildings reappropriated for public function. On a
sunny afternoon, the group of us headed to the squat
accompanied by Encore Heureux, a Paris-based
architecture office headed by Nicholas Delon and Julien
Choppin. Known by the students at the Taubman College
of Architecture + Urban Planning for their participation in
last year’s Future of Design conference, the architects have
been working with the students and residents of Jeudi Noir
to improve the condition of the building and to bring the
building to code.
Romain Minod, one of the architecture students who lives in
the squat, plays our tour guide during the visit, a role many
of the squatters assume from time to time to the interested
public. Upon arrival, he ushers us into a large central
courtyard. The courtyard itself is the lifeblood of the place:
a meeting and gathering space that can be viewed from
almost any room in the complex. The scene is one of daily
life: cars are parked to one side, while goods are unloaded
from one of them. A few squatters garden in the courtyard.
They go on with their work undisturbed when we enter,
accustomed to being part of the spectacle of the place.
The courtyard itself is one of many sites of architectural
intervention. A series of colorful crates fill the depression
in the center. The crates are stacked to different heights;
some create a ground surface, while others serve as seating
areas. Small trees, vegetables, and herbs grow in seemingly
haphazardly placed white wooden crates, creating a friche
garden in strict opposition to the manicured garden just
outside the doors of this hotel particulier.
After Romain and Nicolas give a brief introduction to the
project, we are ushered throughout the “public spaces
of the building,” or the spaces that do not comprise the

living quarters of the 37 inhabitants. Our tour feels very
choreographed and linear, a staged sequence that’s been
highly crafted by its curators. We move from the cavernous
cavities in the elaborate basement back up to the courtyard,
and then up a monumental staircase with wrought iron
banisters. We pass through a grand drawing room, and finally
stop outside of a room, “the office,” where the story of the
squat materializes as Romain’s thesis project for architecture
school.
Memory feels tangible at No 1bis. On sites where
preservation has reached monumental proportion (whether
the Chateau at Versailles or the Chateau de Bretagne in
Nantes), history is polished to an artificial sheen. At the squat,
the distinct sense of the passage of time is felt more strongly
than in places choreographed for the purpose of memorial
preservation. Pristine and well-kept tourist destinations like
Versailles reek of the authorial power that preserves them,
their original splendor maintained through constant, strategic
maintenance. Here, at the squat Jeudi Noir has called La
Marquise, one gets the sense of rediscovering something that
has been forgotten for a very long time.
Ceiling ornamental murals, once brilliant with rich tones, are
now chipping and faded. Metal detailing is rusted, doors
creak, and a layer of irremovable dust encases everything.
The squat is a scene of extreme juxtapositions that transcend
social, economic, and temporal barriers. The eclecticism
of the rooms is theatrical, comical, taxidermic even. Items
of extreme wealth from another era coexist with makeshift
contemporary materials. Household items from the 50’s still
outfit the kitchens, and a telephone with a receiver is placed
conveniently in a bathroom--once an item of luxury and
convenience, now an absolute absurdity.
The idiosyncrasy of the place appeals to my sensibilities and
gets me thinking about space, inequity and appropriation.
At its core the story resounds like a continuum in the French
revolutionary tradition - a struggle between excesses and
redistribution. It seems logical that a residence of this scale
which remained under disuse for decades in one of the
densest, most desirable cities be turned over for public use.
On the other hand, as an American, I cannot help but express
concern for the importance of property rights, a cornerstone
of our constitution.

Previous pages:
Interior courtyard during event
Facing page:
Laurianne dresses as a ballerina snaps
a photo of Mo Harmon. Laurianne lives
with her parents at the squat.
The notion that people have the right to do what they choose
with their own land and property is one that has gone
largely uncontested since John Locke’s wrote his canonical
textss concerning natural rights in the 17th century. At its
most charged, the squat is a political statement: an act of
socialism that questions and reconsiders the unconditional
circumstances of man’s inalienable right to own. It raises an
important question regarding the rights of ownership: what
responsibility does an individual have to maintain his or her
property? Architecture becomes personified - capable of
being abused and neglected. At what point does one lose
the right to his or her property, and then, who becomes the
rightful owner?
The case of the La Marquise suggests that abandoned
architecture should be seized by someone who will treat the
building with care. And more than that, people who have a
vision for what the property can mean to a greater collective
good.
The squatters at Place des Vosges are not lazy vagrants
who contaminate the place with their presence. Rather, the
squatters are actually improving the building by making
it inhabitable once again. None squat completely out of
necessity but because of an idealistic belief system. They are
conscious of being implicated in a political issue greater than
the squat itself.
With the help of Encore Heureux, Jeudi Noir is renovating
the structure to meet modern building code requirement.
They have placed emergency exit signs in the basement,
reworked the plumbing systems and have restored electricity
to the entire complex. But the squatters have done more
than simply fix up the building. Always acting as a museum
or exhibit to an interested public, the hotel particulier now
plays other roles by opening its doors. Once a week, the
squat hosts a small vegetable market; on Tuesday nights the
courtyard hosts free concerts; and periodically, the grand
drawing rooms become a stage for plays or improvisational
dance performances. The squatters have single-handedly
transformed the hotel particulier into an inhabitable museum
and cultural destination.
Given its context, the squat explicitly addresses Parisian
housing reform. However, understanding the squat and its
movement has implications beyond France’s borders. As
Americans interested in French strategies of appropriation for
the creation of public space, the squat is particularly relevant
to us.
La Marquise makes a case for architectural activism. Or
simply stated, it helps reconsider the typical role architects
have played in the production of public space. Seeing Encore
Heureux collaborate with the residents at the squat, and
invest time and effort in an unconventional site with uncertain
repercussions points to the possibility for a proactive
practice.
At the beginning of the last century, modernists called for
architecture to materialize from its culture, or the Zeitgeist.
Now acts like the squat call for an inversion of this cause
and effect relationship. The question is not how the culture
impacts architecture, but rather how can architecture change
culture - to not only redefine what it means to own but also to
rethink the mode and methodology of design as an activism
rather than commercialism.
88

THE CLOTHES LINE DOUBLES AS
A WALL. AND A FEW CATS HAVE
MADE THEIR HOME IN THE ROOM.
PLUS THE ROOM IS BEING USED AS
A COMMUNAL BICYLCE STORAGE.
SMALL PRICE TO PAY FOR LIVING
QUARTERS IN ONE OF PARIS’
MOST DESIRABLE NEIGHBORHOODS.
1 BIS PLACE DES VOSGES. AND
JEUDI NOIR HAS SET UP SHOP
THERE. LAUREN VASEY AND MO
HARMON SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES
SQUATTING A 17TH CENTURY HOTEL
PARTICULIAIRE IN THE CENTER OF
THE FRENCH CAPITAL.

W h y d i d y o u c h o o s e t o l i v e t h e r e ? W h a t m a d e
y o u d e c i d e t o s t a y ?
MH: Some of the appeal was that I would get to stay in Paris
longer, and that I would feel less like a tourist and more like
a native. The Speranza! project was also important to me, it
sounded like I would be making a positive impact on society and
it would be easier to convince my parents that I should stay.
LV: Dear mom and dad, I am squatting illegally in a 17th
century mansion in the heart of Paris. I might be arrested. I am
designing buildings for the homeless, so it’s ok. Love you….
For me, I was fascinated by the idea that change could occur at
the hands of individuals, both in the action of the squat, and in
the specific architecture project, Speranza! I wanted to know how
these projects came about, and how we could implement those
strategies here in Detroit.
Were you nervous?
MH: Definitely nervous, but I was also excited. I was more
nervous before Lauren decided to stay because I didn’t speak
fluent French, and would be the only American there.
LV: I was ready for a Paris adventure, but definitely not ready
to be arrested. I did know going into this that it was a sanctioned
and well connected squat, so that alleviated some of my fears.
Where did they have you stay in the squat?
LV: They gave us a room on the first floor right next to the
communal kitchen that was actually an enfilade condition, or
circulation space. People would always be walking in to use the
bathroom or the kitchen, or to get to the connecting bedroom.
How did you make this room feel like home?
How did you make it feel private?
LV: Our primary concern was visual privacy. We hung two
sheets to section off a corner of the room. We could slide them to
open up the space and let light in.
MH: We wanted to define space with minimal materials and
without harming the original architecture. We didn’t do much,
but our actions did start the thinking process for Speranza!: What
do people need to have a sense of ownership of space?
And daily life?
MH: Some mornings we would wake up to classical music
being played on the grand piano - some of the other squatters
were really talented musicians. We would generally do work
during the day in our room in the architect’s room, an attic
space on the top floor. It was our studio space. We would cook
most of our meals in the community kitchen, and then eat in
the courtyard to be social
LV: In the evenings, there would often be events at the squat:
either drama or dance performances or concerts. We would try
to attend all the squat events that we could.
What difficulties did you have to deal with?
LV: We didn’t have a shower in our room, so we would have
to use the architects’ shower. When they weren’t there, we
couldn’t shower; it was sometimes difficult to be on the same
schedule. Also, there was no hot water.
MH: I got used to the cold showers quickly, but I can’t
imagine taking them in the winter. One day, the water went off
completely and we were worried it wouldn’t come back.
LV: We thought it was the government taking action to shut
down the squat, and that our squat days were numbered.
There was also the time when as we were coming home, and
a stranger tried to force his way into the space behind us as we
were coming home.
MH: We had to shut him out, but it was a complicated
situation. Had he trespassed, what would we tell the police,
“I’m living illegally here, but another man is trying to come in,
also illegally?” We didn’t legally have the right to the place
more than anyone else did.
LV: Right, the squat was essentially a protest for the rights
of the homeless, but to actually let the homeless live there
would mean undermining the media’s representation of the
movement. Prior to the cogent establishment of the squat,
there were certainly homeless people spending time in Place
des Vosges neighborhood. So they had watched the residence
disintegrate for years, only to suddenly be inhabited by people
that had moved in as a political statement and who did not
truly need a place to live.
91

This page from top:
Mo Harmon takes a morning
shower
Working with Romain Minod and
Nancy Ottaviano on Speranza!
Temporary partition and
ceiling

Architectural militancy
adheres to strict rules.
Nicolas Delon and
Julien Choppin of Encore
Heureux consult with the
squatters at 1bis Place
des Vosges in order to
bring the building up
to code. Strategic step
in legalizing illegal
occupancy.
This page from top:
Nicolas Delon, Julien Choppin
Romain Minod
View from 1bis Places des
Vosges
Facing page: lower level
gallery space
93

Did you get to know the other squatters
well?
LV: We got to know the other architects of the squat very
well, particularly Romain Minod and Nancy Ottaviano, who
worked on Speranza! with us. They convinced the other
squatters to let us stay, trusting that we wouldn’t do any
damage to the place, and that we would do good work. We
found out afterwards that there had been some resistance
to us moving in. The group, all 37 of them, actually makes
decisions by veto. Initially some of them were opposed to
us working and not getting paid. And then later some of
them doubted that our intentions in squatting were genuine.
I understand their misgivings: all of them are taking huge
personal risks in squatting, whereas we weren’t really taking a
risk. If the squat had been shut down, we probably just would
have been sent back to America.
MH: Many of the squatters would make an effort to talk to
us, but not all of them spoke fluent English. Some of their
preconceived notions about Americans were funny at times.
On one of our last nights, Lauren - the wonderful cook that
she is - and I made dinner for a handful of the squatters.
When I first suggested the idea, they reluctantly accepted:
half expecting us to boil hot dogs or buy McDonalds takeout.
They really thought that all Americans don’t know how
to cook.
LV: Really its only 95% of Americans that can’t cook, so
we really showed them. Our boiled hot dogs were delicious.
Though we did have to deal with some animosity, the first
people to really accept us at the squat were the children.
They had no reservations about American strangers, and
were often running around the mansion un-chaperoned.
They didn’t always respect the public/private threshold
implicit in our highly technical sheet set up, however.
It’s interesting, the squat produced a very interesting
and successful child care system. The parents would be
somewhere in the complex, but because there were always
some people around, there were always people to watch
their children. We gained respect and trust of the parents by
playing with their kids.
MH: The kids were very curious about us: would chase us
around and take pictures of us, or play soccer with us. They
didn’t speak English, but would still try and communicate
in French to us. The older ones would be willing to put the
effort in to speak slowly - which sometimes wouldn’t help
- and use a lot of hand motions. My time in Paris greatly
increased my ability to speak with my hands.
You worked with the squatters on Speranza!
W i l l y o u c o n t i n u e t o w o r k o n t h e p r o j e c t ?
What did you learn from the experience, or
what do you plan to take back to the states?
LV: I’ve noticed! that I end a lot of more! of my written words
with exclamation marks!
In all seriousness, Speranza! is a project that can never be
finished. There will always be a need for pragmatically flexible
architecture, for mutable spaces that can alleviate problems such
as homelessness. Speranza! Is also siteless, meaning that it could
be applied to any place. I would be interested in continuing the
work in Detroit if there’s interest.
MH: One of the issues with activist projects like Speranza! is
that they have to be financially supported somehow. Garnering
support generally had to be networking: pitching an idea or design
proposal, and then seeing where we could get materials, space,
or money. If we want to continue the work here in the states, it
would have to operate similarly.
LV: At school, it often feels as if design is hypothetical: an
exercise that never actually comes to fruition in the real world.
It would be satisfying to build actual structures for people. To
continue the work in Paris, I’m writing an article for the Speranza!
website and intend to continue my involvement across borders.
MH: And as for the specific design that we proposed to the
Mayor’s representative, Romain and some others are working now
on building the physical prototype. Hopefully, the final design will
be implemented this winter.
B a s e d o n y o u r e x p e r i e n c e , d o y o u s u p p o r t
squatting?
LV: This particular squat was a very unique situation, but
squatting as an action cannot be generalized: it doesn’t solve the
issues that it provokes. The squat raises awareness that there are
enough buildings in the world to house everyone, but because
of the way our society functions, not everyone has a roof over
their heads. Through some combination of generosity and good
design, we could alleviate problems such as homelessness. How
these designs can be implemented, whether through architectural
activism or the work of non-profit organizations, is a question to
be answered by our architectural generation.
94

SPERANZA!
/story by Mo Harmon
/photography by Lauren Vasey and
Mo Harmon
There is an old French story called Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique in
which a man is stranded on a desert island. Isolated and ill equipped, he
must build his own habitat: the kind of world he wants to live in. He names
the island Speranza, literally meaning “hope,” in Italian.
This title Speranza is a namesake adapted by a group of architects in
Paris to describe a collection of their projects. These Speranza! projects
are a collection of humanistic proposals in which architecture is used
responsibly to build affordable structures for those who need it. The
overarching premise is broad, but the common idea is to act specifically
with small scale level projects that collectively can make a significant
impact for the people that they benefit.
Lauren and I were given a place to stay at Place des Vosges because we
would be working on a specific project for Speranza! Down the street from
Place des Vosges, the City Hall of the 4th arrondissement converts one
small room into an overnight homeless shelter when the temperature drops
in the winter. There they offer men and women small beds on which to rest
in a warm environment. Though the homeless shelter is already operating,
the existing system leaves qualities to be desired. What they do not yet
offer their users is the sense of home and security that accompanies the
ownership of space. That is where architecture steps in.
For us, the project was two fold- involving both research and design.
We began the project by considering similar precedent projects. That
research proved difficult, however, because of a lack of published material
on architecture for homeless shelters; many people just do not find
inexpensive architecture for the homeless an interesting topic. Thinking
about precedent projects became more abstract; rather than thinking
about specific projects, we thought about qualities we wanted the design
to embody: to be easily constructible, programmatically flexible, mutable,
and recyclable. We pieced together different projects – whether they were
realized or only hypothesized – to create an ongoing database of precedent
studies to consider in our own design.
Our goals for the redesign of the shelter were fairly simple. We needed to
create living spaces that would not only provide a place to rest; they would
offer visual, audio, and light privacy as well as provide secure storage for
personal items. Because the City Hall uses the room during the day, the
design also needed to be easily collapsible to make room to accommodate
the daytime program - meeting and exhibition room. Furthermore, the
overall cost needed to fit into a tight budget.
A seemingly natural solution to every problem was the concept of folding.
Everything we wanted to offer the users – beds, tables, shelves, lockers,
and partition walls – could fold out of a compact central module. This
flexibility of space allowed the design to not only collapse, but allowed the
folded up structure to be used productively as a standard exhibition wall
during the day. Costs would be minimized by maximizing four living areas
folding out of a single exhibition wall.
To present our ideas for the space, we met with the mayor’s representative.
The team decided there was no better way to present our design ambitions
than in pop up book form. The pop up book embodied the qualities we
wanted the final design to embody - space that materializes out of minimal
volume. For something to come from nothing. It was a risky move – if done
poorly it would appear tacky and childish; but done well it would display
our design strategy in a visually tangible way. The risk paid off and the
conversation quickly changed from a question of approval to a question of
how can this project move further.
We continued design work, but pretty soon our ninety days allotted to
us by the government of France were over. As we left Paris, we left this
Speranza! project with a clear design direction and momentum. Though
no design is ever perfect, our final proposal fulfills our original design
ambitions: living areas unfold from a single over-sized exhibition wall. The
design is also flexible enough to accommodate a varying number of users
and leaves room for other necessary programs such as a cooking area and
living room. The project is currently in progress and we are very excited to
see it come to fruition.

manufacturing attractors
memory as catalyst

and placeholder
/introductory text by Anya Sirota
/story by Katie Baldwin
/photography by Katie Baldwin, Lauren Bebry,
Noureen Dadani and Ivan Adelson
While globalization evens the figurative economic playing field, cities are
compelled to compete on an international stage for attention and presence. City
agendas, related to investment, job growth and tourism, depend on individuation
and place marketing. In the past years, significant resources and energy have
been allocated to creating new urban attractors. However for the most part,
regenerative urban schemes have become synonymous with highly designed
architectural structures and their symbolic relationship to cultural production.
In the case of Saint Etienne’s Cité du Design, Finn Geipel and Giuli Andi of
Lin Architects, worked on an attractor scheme that differed in many ways
from typically-deployed “wow-factor” iconography. Sited in a former arms
manufacturing complex known as “La Manufacture”, the Cité du Design
suggests that thematic inspiration, rather than pure visual vanguard, might
serve as the driver for manufacturing attractors. When converting the old
factory facility – its courtyards, inner streets and green spaces – cues were
taken from the Museum of Art and Industry, founded in Saint Etienne by Marius
Vachon in 1889. Thus recalling what was arguably a long tradition of design and
production, the complex is positioned as an international institute for industrial
design, research and exhibition. In this context, LIN Architects contend that
strategic use of urban memory can salvage post-industrial space from oblivion
by restoring a lost sense of identity.
To put La Manufacture, and consequently Saint Etienne, back on the economic
map, Geipel and Andi follow a series of innovative steps. First, they create a
symbolic visual presence by assembling a large scale observation tower. It
functions both as signage and look out point. Next, they recuperate a number
of the historical buildings - each with very different architectural qualities -
to house new programming, including: studio spaces, accommodations for
scholars, workshops, image editing facilities and exhibition spaces. Finally, they
construct an innovative shell structure to serve as a “switchboard” for the site.
It is called the Platine and contains the bulk of the public programming: the
Agora, the exhibition and seminary platform, the auditorium, the Mediadisque,
the greenhouse and restaurant. While the complex combines a wide array of
spatial typologies, it ingeniously programs a small portion of the available site.
By transforming only a fragment of the available space, Geipel and Andi predict
that the organization of the Cité du Design will emerge organically over time.
Katie Baldwin, Noureen Dadani
and Lauren Bebry stroll the
grounds of the Cité du Design
toward sunset.
At Cité du Design, memory serves as a catalyst for establishing the unique
potential of the vacated site. But memory alone does not suffice to reprogram the
entire troubled complex. Here LIN Architects display restrained confidence in
memory’s potential, electing to leave spaces vacant for future emergent uses. 98

emergent program and why we heart it so
Emergent program starts with the idea that the urban void is a
myth, that the moment a site is drained of its original program,
new uses take root. Emergent program refers to the disparate,
unauthorized, burgeoning appropriations which can be observed
on a site. Temporary or longlived, emergent program can serve as
a catalyst for inclusive, multiplicitous urban grounds and assumes
that architecture is in constant transformation and movement.
Below: ticket counter in
platine
courtyard and design school
view from observation tower
In the case of the Cité du Design, LIN architects proposed a
project that in the absence of a vital, emergent program, would
keep a placeholder for future uses. Their intervention is tactically
and unapologetically partial and open-ended.
The Cité du Design in its current state was entirely conceived
by the city government. The project was commissioned by the
city as a new home for the design biennale. The abandoned
arms manufacture site was an obvious choice of location for the
St. Etienne’s reinvention of itself as the art and design capital of
France. Through funding made available by the city, the Loire
Valley province and the French Ministry of Culture, the Cite du
Design was built with the expectation that it would create new
jobs and attract internationally acclaimed artists and designers.
The design also serves as a brand new space for the St. Etienne
School of Art and Design. The school’s previous facilities, located
farther from the city center, were run down and cramped for
space. The new buildings face a different set of issues. Because of
the sterility of the spaces, the art students find it difficult to treat
the facilities as their own. Rather than making exceptional use of
the renovated buildings, many students have turned towards the
still-abandoned H-buildings of the arms manufacture site.
These buildings, used only once every two years to house the
biennale, consist of vast open spaces that can be utilized in a
variety of ways to host exhibitions, shows and galleries arranged
by the students. While visiting the site, more activity was taking
place in these dusty buildings with broken windows than in the
pristine schoolhouse buildings opposite the chain link fence.
Most recently, Alexandre Chemetoff has come on board to
treat the “placeholder” buildings and landscape. Chemetoff,
an accomplished landscape architect and urban designer, has
proposed an entirely new concept for the arms manufacture site
that focuses on the main axis running through the abandoned
H buildings. His design addresses the potential program as
predicted through observations of how the space is being used
now by the population present. Chemetoff’s plans for the arms
manufacture site bring hope to a space that seems to have
outdone itself with fancy design. Chemetoff knows that there is far
more to a sexy building than its cladding. Rather, it weighs on our
collective conscience as architects to design spaces that can be
utilized by the people who intend to use them.
We love emergent program, not only because it is spontaneous
and wild, but also because without it we find ourselves designing
empty boxes with shiny finishes.
101

>> mode
“Elegance does not consist
of putting on
a new dress”
- Coco Chanel
architecture & lace
/story by Devon Stonebrook
/photography by Matt Nickel, Tyler Willis and Jordan Buckner

NORMANDY HAS A
LONG TRADITION OF
MAKING LACE. IT GOES
BACK CENTURIES. BUT IS
WASN’T UNTIL LAST YEAR
THAT THE AREA GOT A
MUSEUM TO SPOTLIGHT
THIS TRADITION.
ARCHITECTURE BY
MOATTI AND RIVIÈRE.
SCENOGRAPHY BY PASCAL
PAYEUR.

At La Citè International de la Dentille
et de la Mode de Calais, architects
Moatti and Rivière operate on an
existing building like a well tailored
garment, amplifying its structural
characteristics, sculpting a desirable
figure that is fresh but not entirely
unrecognizable. Their tactics tell a
narrative of the building’s former
use as a lace factory. Transformed
into a museum for textiles and
fashion, the building recalls the
meticulous detailing of a lace making.
Exterior glazing wraps around the
front building, bulging in and out
like fabric hugging the curves of a
woman’s figure.

107

The facade is embellished with a rhythmic
pattern inspired by the traditional lace
making template. Entering the lobby
of the museum, visitors are lured by a
shingled application of metallic tags that
line the hallway walls. Atop the metal,
fluorescent tubes are mounted vertically
as wall sconces, adding an intimate
yet industrious glow to the interior.
Traditionally, lace factories were designed
to allow natural light to enter the building
through repeated window frames coated
with a protective blue tinting that
prevented the sun from damaging the
fabric. Giving a contemporary twist to
the utility of tinted windows, Moatti
and Rivière layered an array of neon film
along the top two rows of glazing facing
the courtyard. Both bold and frivolous,
the neon panes cascade a rainbow of
light into the upper hallways of the
gallery space, adding a dose of flair to
the lingerie, gowns, and woven furniture
showcased inside. The Lace Museum in
Calais was revamped like a well balanced
ensemble, juxtaposing historical remnants
of the factory with vibrant allure to give
the building a deliciously fresh identity.
The result is a building that reminds
us why the intersection of fashion
and architecture is so exciting. Both
architecture and fashion, when done well,
provide protection and structure, both
play with privacy and exhibitionism, both
project a constructed identity, and dare i
say, produce affect. Scaled to the body or
the city, the theatrics and intelligence of a
well-constructed piece are irresistible.
108

>> construct
/story by Bruce Findling
/photography by Brittany Roy and Jordan Buckner
PRODUCTION vs/ PRODUCT
109

The philosophy of the contemporary construction
site is one of budget, schedule and most importantly,
quality. The path we as contractors take to get to this
end however is not always the most glamorous, or
at times legal. In fact, when owners and consultants
make the weekly rounds in what is normally deemed
as the “dog and pony show”, work areas are cleaned,
dangerous activities postponed, and subcontractors
are plumbed up to be on their best and safest
behavior. When the tour is over, however, things
usually fall back into their typical state of organized
chaos. The effort it takes to get a large commercial
site into presentable shape can be daunting, and
although getting workers home to their families is the
absolute priority, it can sometimes appear otherwise
to the casual public observer.
Forward to Le Channel in Calais, where the actual
construction became just as - if not more so - than
the end product. When I first heard that the public
was invited to become part of the construction
process, I cringed inside (and apparently outside),
thinking of constant safety supervision grinding
production to a halt. This gut reaction is completely
unjustified however when one realizes that speed and
cost are not the most important thing here. Having
a site where a resident can come by and spend a few
hours observing and participating in regards to the
way their town is being constructed has a multitude
of advantages, the most important being a sense of
ownership over the project once it is completed.
Furthermore, architects and subcontractors gain
free publicity and form a greater relationship with
the customer and local area as a whole, boosting
the image and accessibility of both parties (this is
especially critical for the architectural profession
which is estimated to serve only 2% of the American
population). Completion dates can now be flexible
since users are already inhabiting the intended site,
and the cost increases due to extending schedule
duration and increasing safety elements can be
negotiated into contracts before work begins.
Though it takes a truly civic minded project to make
use of this new technique in building, the potential
payoff from the resulting public goodwill seems
worthy of the preparation needed to make it all
click successfully and safely. Though the prevailing
construction culture here in the U.S. makes it difficult
to understand how a customer-interactive jobsite
can function, hearts and minds can always be changed.
Especially on smaller projects where insurance liability
can be more easily handled than the typical large
scale commercial job. Besides, the construction phase
has always been my favorite part of experiencing a
building, so why not let everyone else get a chance to
enjoy it too?
110

>> landscape
113

G
R
E
E
N
+
T
Christopher Ponceau
of Rue du Repos talks
landscape, scenography and the
quest for blurred
boundaries. We caught him at his
retreat in Ozenay, Bourgogne,
where he is currently restoring
an 18th century farm house.
Christophe tells us why Gilles
Clement refuses the notion of
mauvaise herbe, French for weed,
and why he’s having second
thoughts about it.
R
A
P
+
/interview by Anya Sirota
/portrait courtesy of Jean Pierre Danesi
/Green Trap and Zaragoza photography courtesy Christophe Ponceau
/Green Trap with train photo courtesy of Andres Otero
/Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde photo courtesy France Dubois
+
114

You are trained as an architect, but practise landscape architecture? What happened?
Nothing terrible. Honestly. I never anticipated working with landscape. It was just a series of
events, of chance encounters, and one thing led to another. I met Gilles Clement when I was
presenting my thesis project in architecture school. He was on the jury. And he invited me to
work with him on a few exhibition projects. It really wasn’t landscape, it was the representation
of landscape. But I began to discover the milieu, little by little. It’s true that I am an unlikely
landscape architect. I do exhibits, artistic installations, private gardens. And in the process, I am
always learning. Perhaps in spite of, or even thanks to, my unconventional training, I work with
living material in a surprising, unanticipated, dare I say, architectural way.
And working with living material? Challenging?
It’s really inspiring. Architectural material tends to be fixed. It’s static and corresponds in my
mind to a weighty design responisibility. A landscape begins when the design phase is terminated;
you see it shift, grow, take shape, morph through time. There is always an a element of surprise.
The material is in a constant state of motion.
You often talk about how a project starts for you when in fact the installation is finished. How is
that?
Landscape is in constant transformation, which i why I love to follow my projects, to visit them on
occasion, to track their progress, to see what they have become. With some clients I have developed
a close relationship, and I’ll drop in for an occasional visit to see how things are developing, to
give them some feedback. In a public space things are different and really depend on the people
who are taking care of the landscape. I try to visit the projects at least once a year to speak with
the gardeners. But is always fascinating how people take possession of a design. You really have to
learn to abdicate some control over your vision. Landscape is process-based: you plant, the design
morphs, people respond, and then there are always modifications. And at some point, as a designer,
you have to let go and let the garden take its own shape, to let it live in the hands of the people who
care for it. Ultimately - and this might sound hokey - designing a garden is magic. You make a
series of decisions and then are surprised by what nature has decided for you.
How does the notion of time work with or against you when the installation is temporary? Take
Green Trap for example?
Green Trap is a temporary installation that we completed in Lausanne for the Festival du Jardin
Urban (it takes place every four to five years). The idea was a basic cable structure fashioned in the
form of web designed to join 2 bridges. The installation was 25 meters above ground. At the center
of the cables a central node held a substrate with vegetation intended to invade the web over the
span of the festival. It was visible from the street
and from the passing metro. It was a very context
specific proposal. Amusing. Very amusing to install.
But it is important to understand that the ephemiral
leaves you will less wiggle room for error. We needed
to choose plants that are ferocious, adaptable, performative,
strong. And we created the node 2 months
prior to the installation in order to ensure that the
plants had begun to invade. In fact, we initially built
two identical nodes as back up. Because living material
sometimes has a mind of its own, and you have
to factor that in.
115

And Zargoza?
This page bottom:
Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde,
Didier Faustino, architect
Facing page:
Zaragoza French Pavillion
installation with Combes
& Renaud “un-still image”
projection
Previous Page:
Green Trap installation
completed in Lausanne in
collaboration with Adrien
Rovero
A very different project. Zaragoza hosted Expo 2008, a World’s Fair on water
and sustainable development. I was in charge of the interior installation of the
French Pavillion. The idea was to demonstrate the effects of water on the environment.
And to do so we staged a controlled sensorial interior that was designed
to reproduce the experiential effects of an exterior condition. Here’s the rub. We
used a video installation by Combes & Renaud that required complete darkness.
And we also planted the interior with native French vegetation, which required
light. In addition to reconciling the question of lighting, which was literally
done by “feeding” the plants at night when the exhibition was closed, there are
also the issues of substrate, watering systems, hydrometrics. So, yes, to make a
long answer short, it is sometimes challenging to produce a naturalistic environment
that is ment to perform for a specific span of time. And to perform well.
Is there much of a conversation developing between architecture and landscape in
France?
My impression is that there is not enough interaction between the two fields. The
landscape architect still “submits” to the architectural project, deals with the its
grandscale design. The desire of the architect still trumps in the built environment.
And, as luck would have it, the landscape budget always comes in the end,
which also means that its the first thing to get cut when funds run dry. If I were
to think of an architect whose approach to the building process is inclusive,
multiplicitous and humble enough to allow landscape its proper place alongside
architecture, I would have to call out Patrick Bouchain. He equalizes the playing
field in his practice. But I am sure that there are other architects that are inclusive
in this manner.
Having worked with Gilles Clement would you say that there is such a thing as a
“mauvaise herbe” or “weed”?
Of course, Gilles Clement would say that “bad plants” do not exist; they are the
James Deans of the vegetal world, testy, but seductive, and, yes, necessary. But
I have to be honest, now that I am working on my own garden, I am starting to
have second thoughts. Some plants are really agressive, and you can’t help but
want to weed them out.. In terms of appreciating their vitality, understanding
their potential, theorizing the weed - I think there is value in that. Every
territory comes with its seeds and its strata and deserves to be considered,
respected. In my practice I learn a lot from weeds, from the landscape of the
friche - with ideas about interaction, transformation, contamination, blurred
borders.

119

an•thro•po•mor•phic, adjective
1: described or thought of as having a human form or human attributes <anthropomorphic deities>
2: ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things <anthropomorphic supernaturalism>
ar•chi•tec•ture, noun
1: the art or science of building; specifically: the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones
2a: formation or construction resulting from or as if from a conscious act <the architecture of the garden>
2b: a unifying or coherent form of structure <the novel lacks architecture>
an•thro•po•mor•phic/ar•chi•tec•ture
Inspired by Todd Weinstein’s, The 36 unknown, photographic endeavor in which he “photograph[ed] abstract faces that [he]
saw hiding in the shadows and light of different locations.” I find interest in capturing the emotions, physical expressions,
anthropomorphic moments Todd discovered while traveling throughout Poland.
The image is not something sought after; it is something which appears. The project here was not an intentional search for facial
expressions, human resemblance, anthropomorphic characters within architecture but rather a chance encounter. I do not go
looking for them, they come looking for me, and eventually we find each other. Though seemingly awkward when isolated from
the entire structure, these images tell a story, a history of a place; the photographs create narratives, bringing new meaning to each
site.
/ series and text by Ivan Adelson

>> endnotes

ISBN 978-0-557-65276-1 90000
9
780557
652761
s u t a m o s .n e t