 All right, settle in, find a seat. There's tons of seats up in the front. It's really a great pleasure to welcome Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal for our first evening lecture this fall. I still remember very distinctly the first time I encountered Lacaton-Vassal's work. It was in a book which featured their now very famous house, the Maison-la-Tapis in Florac. It was around 1993. Just as the formal explorations in architecture were finally leading to buildings, such as Bilbao in 1997. Here was this modest project in all its power, already announcing something completely new. And that I found so completely beautiful. The combination of a simple yet brilliant idea to wrap a house with a greenhouse and create a thickened transition zone between inside and outside, filled with light and the movement of air that one could imagine as the large light doors open up and emitting a mysterious glow at night as the house closed up unto itself. Like a greenhouse, the wrapper would also mitigate changes in temperature and in a cost effective way enlarge the space of the house as added space, but also as architecture through the contrasting of materials and textures, the sense of compression and expansion and the modulation of light and air to define different zones of living and design a gradient of experiences from core to periphery. And so here we are today with Lakaton Vassal's growing body of work, an incredible array of buildings that range in scale type program context, but which have all succeeded in carrying and expanding the seeds of these very first ideas in with astounding consistency and quality. From their celebrated conversion of the Palais de Tokyo to their social housing refurbishments, their non-school of architecture or their frac in Dunkirk, Lakaton Vassal's projects have mastered the art of strategic thinking, skillful design, architectural invention and an ethic of building which enables a certain economy of means to produce maximum effects. But these effects are not in the service of the art of architecture alone. They are first and foremost in the service of the life that architecture holds and enables, designing around simple everyday practices, which as they explained in the Metropolis article published on the occasion of their 2016 Game Changer Award, revolve around what Lakaton describes as, quote, a big amount of little questions. How much should a glass door reveal? Can you open that door and put a chair outside? Can you have lunch on your balcony? Like filmmakers, the architects create simple frames around everyday life. And yet, as Lakaton noted once, in fact, doing simple things is often the most difficult. And while we can admire the practice's work for the life it enables, it is also important that in a time when many of us are committed to finding new modes of practice and engagement, we recognize how much Lakaton Vassal's practice has already done for architecture and for architects, demonstrating time after time what we can offer and why by finding new ways to engage with questions of social housing, of preservation, of building schools and public cultural buildings, always thinking through the built fabric with pragmatism but also with great pleasure. Lakaton Vassal's commitment to building only when needed and only what matters is certainly both awe-inspiring and providing a roadmap for a new generation that has grown up with their work as reference. And Lakaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal established a firm in Paris in 1987. Today they are one of the most awarded and coveted architects practicing around the world. Both have long-standing commitments to academia teaching at cross-schools in Europe but also in the US. We are really thrilled to welcome you tonight. Please join me in welcoming Lakaton Vassal. Thank you very much for your invitation and for your very nice presentation and we did already some lectures here and the last one was in 2013. If I remember correctly. So maybe some projects we will present have been already presented here but you know the time of project is quite long and it means that in five years, six years we have not so many new projects too but maybe we have different way to explain them after the more experience. So architecture is about freedom, generosity, pleasure. Our philosophy for all the projects is based on the principle of generosity of space and economy serving the life, the uses and the appropriation with the objective of inventing beyond standards to make architecture pleasant, efficient, affordable for everyone and sustainable. In this present time, we think strongly that we need to design an architecture that challenges conventional answers that is free from constraints, that is based on constructional intelligence, good sense and creativity, generosity and economy. A place that is open to freedom of use to appropriation and improvisation. To achieve these goals, our design approach is based on some major principles. Generosity of space, extra space, double space in order to facilitate uses and appropriation. The use of efficient system of construction, open structures, prefabricated systems which generate efficient high capacity volumes and grounds. The economy to spend less and better. This is a key point. A bio-climatic concept that means the maximum use of natural resources of the climate. The importance and the value of the existing to reuse, to transform, to reinvent from the existing. Another principle is never create constraints of use. To give place for people and users. A process of designing from the inside out which means that we always start the design from the interior to sink the project at the position of the user, moving from a space to another. And dialogue and participation to allow discussions and adjustments and to involve users' training and responsibility. We think necessary to return to the simple, to the fundamental, to the essential. We call strategies of the essential because we think it's nice to come back to very simple facts. To build in fact is simple and eternal. It is just to plant some branches in the sand following a circle, then to bend them in order to start to make the form of a roof and to start to cover them with some straw that will be open enough to leave the wind in the air crossing through with your neighbors and then to place another kind of straw, much more thin in order to avoid the rain and the drops of water to go inside. Just a straw hut with its door, with a fence around and then nine branches fixed in the sand covered by a straw roof, sort of living room just to see the landscape around. This was our first house. At the limit of the desert in Niger, in the Sahara, it was a very simple house, but just this place in the landscape creates for us a sort of incredible luxury. So come back to very simple elements of landscape and building simply. We follow that in the modern movement of architecture with Mies van der Rohe, because nearly for each project that we have to do, we always look at this reference when we have to think about a tower, as the organization of the plants, the precision of the plants, not only a tower, two towers, because one tower is quite simple, but two towers, this is much more difficult. And each time we have this kind of reference, which is fundamental for us. And perhaps even more, the KSTD house program in the 50s, social housing program, economic houses, that finally have provided incredibly beautiful villa. Nearly nothing, perhaps 10 or 12 posts, steel posts, quite thin, a roof, which is a sort of corrugated aluminum on top and an envelope of sliding doors all around, placed in beautiful landscape. This was a very, very affordable way of building and it provides incredible luxury of space. So something that is based on the simplicity of building, which in the same time is modern and eternal. We were talking just now of the Villa Katsura in Japan, which is also incredibly traditional and modern. So we really believe in the fact to come back to very simple facts, very simple things. The floors are important. The floors like grounds. Each level is a floor, each level is a ground. It's for a house or it's for a building of 10 or 15 or of 20 levels, floors like grounds. So it means to come back to the Maison Domino, columns, beams, floors, and the stairs to link the different floors. Le plan libre. It's exactly the same construction that we can see in Albania last summer. Some poor people building outside the city. This kind of very generous space on three levels and they start to live on top and they have a shop on the ground floor and the between is free. Perhaps it will be built in two years or in three years. But in some other places it is the top that is free and other is some garden on top. So it is sort of maximum floors like grounds or plan libre, giving the maximum of possibilities. Which is also the Polycatoica in Athens and also in Berlin in Tergarten, this project of Hayoto, not so well known which is to make two platforms at seven meters from each other of different size and stairs linking them in a place where they are very carefully take care of all the trees in Tergarten and where it was possible for the clients, for the owners, for the families to take, to install their own house on top of this platform. So really floors like grounds. And the situation, this project that was done in 87 for the IBA in Berlin has provided today one of the most beautiful situations to live inside Berlin. Playing with climates, not fighting against. Working with climates, making do with climates. It means to use the air, to use the wind, to use the sun, the shadow, the light of the existing situation. We are inspired by the greenhouse technology for cultivating salad and tomatoes which is absolutely extremely sophisticated and extremely economic and robust and efficient, pragmatic. And also by the reference of the botanical gardens of the 18th or 19th century. Playing with the climates instead of fighting against. And just seeing how it is possible to install some capacity of housing inside them. So it means a building or a flat is never the same. It is different if it is the summer of the winter, the autumn or spring, if it is the night or if it is a day, if it is cloudy or if it is sunny. It means that the facade is a system that is always changing. You have the floors, you have the grounds, but around this you have a system that is always dynamic, that is always moving in function of the character and the situation of the inhabitants. In function of the climate, in order to use it and not to fight against. So it means working with, making do with all what is existing. We are no more on a tabula rasa. We are, most of the city are already done. So we have to see how we can in the landscape, so we can do with the existing. It means all the trees, all the landscapes, all the people, all the situations with everything that is already there to do more with less. Because we don't believe that because a project it is much more expensive, it will be better or more beautiful. We don't believe that if the technique is extremely complex, including the sophisticated, the comfort and the pleasure will be higher. In many situations it is worse because it's more expensive. So we can really believe that we can do with the minimum in order to achieve the maximum. No waste of ground, minimum of materials, of energy, of money, maximum of intelligence, maximum of architecture. For maximum of generosity, of pleasure, of freedom. For all citizens, for all the inhabitants that make the city. Sometimes we think architecture is like a poem. Minimum of words, for a maximum of sense. Leading to a certain beauty. In architecture the spaces are the words. Minimum to give the maximum. In emitting, each house, each flat is a fragment of the city. So each of this flat is supported by a floor that is like a ground. So beyond the functional, freedom, comfort, generosity of space, pleasure and luxury for all. This is a way that we think the city will grow. Flat by flat. Family after family. A dwelling should have the same facilities as a villa. So it means additional private spaces, winter gardens, terraces, balconies, as much extra space as programmed space inside the city or outside the city. In the density or in the not so dense suburbs. We need to extend the mobility, the freedom of use. All the rooms need to create a mobility, a systems of possibility of walking from one room to another room. From inside to outside, on this ground. We need to have very flexible and economic system of construction. Beam and column, constructive system. Few columns to install flexibility, adaptability and capacity of evolution. And also to deal and to play with the climate. A sort of intermediate temperate space instead of an insulation of 30 centimetres of space. An insulation in which you can live inside using bio-climatic principles. You are talking of the villa La Tapie, but it was our first client. It was our first project. At this time they don't know what was really an architect and we have made these experiments together. Or it was possible for this very modest family, with a very, very modest budget, to try to have an ambition. To have something different than the standard for the same price, from the same cost, instead of 60 or 70 centimetres, to have the possibility of 180 centimetres of space. Creating different spaces with this greenhouse on the east. And this possibility of appropriation, a space where finally the use by the family La Tapie was 10 times more interesting than the one we had in mind when we had designed this house. When we were thinking of a sort of tropical botanical garden inside the greenhouse, they have no problems to install all their furniture inside. And to make of this room the most used room. So you imagine a room which is not totally heated, which is just heated by the sun, we were thinking that they would stay perhaps 30 or 40 per cent of time. In fact, 90 per cent of the time they spend it in this room. So what is habitable and what is not? Always changing the furniture. Always moving it, transforming it. With the furniture of the ground mother that takes place very easily. So one flat, one fragment of the city. And then when we go to collective spaces, just to add this fragment, it is important never to consider 20 flats in the same round or 50. No, it is 20 times one flat. 20 times the same attention to the occupants and the inhabitants of one flat. And the same principle. Or it is possible to build grounds and to create climate. At the moment where we have this possibility to build the ground, to build the floors like ground and to create a climate on top of it, we have done the essential conditions of living. Like for this project in Moulouse for 14 flats, where it was possible with the clients to say, okay, can we invent something different than the stand out? When the stand out is providing some flats of 70 or 80 square meters, is it possible in the same budget to make a flat which could be 180 square meters? And then the main question was, but if the flat is much bigger, the rent will be much bigger. Because normally the cost is defined in function of the market in the city. But after a small discussion, we just think it should be normal to think that the rent should be defined in function of the cost of the building, not the function of the market in the city. So the architect and the firm, they are building a project. This has a cost and in function of the cost, you take a benefit and you rent at the spot. And the client agree. And then it was possible to work on this project and to create for social housing very low rent in a very large and luxurious space. Space of freedom. Space where you can mix your athletic equipment and your bedroom or your garden on your space for an atelier, for space of offers, possibilities and choice, always in relation with outside, with the climate. This generosity of space is valid for housing, but this idea of inhabiting, it covers all the different programs. The question of inhabiting is also essential for a school of architecture. We spend a lot of time when we are students in a school of architecture or when we are professors. So inhabiting in a school. In Nantes, we were thinking that we had the chance to be totally in the middle of the city, in the center of the city. So what could be a school of architecture in a center of the city? Much more than the school of architecture should be a platform of information, a platform of debate about space, about urbanism, about architecture, about art, about culture. Not only for students and professors, for all the city, for the inhabitants of the city. Because in fact, what is a school of architecture? Very often I just see that the most information that you have about a city, the most of energy, the most of work, the most of interesting things about a city and its region, very often it is inside the school of architecture, much more than in the biggest office of the city. So all it is possible to make these elements visible. This information, this energy, visible. So then we just think that this project in Nantes, it should be exactly a platform for space and architecture, for space and art, for space and music. So all what we can bring inside the building. And when the program just define an area of 10,000 square meters for the school of architecture, we have tried to build a space of 30,000 square meters in which the school of architecture could take place for the same budget. So the sort of Maison Domino at a larger scale. Just employing the same systems, minimum of frame structures, minimum of columns, beams, and very large prefabricated floors elements to have a very quick construction, 200 square meters by day of construction, very efficient and very economic. A system that is able to produce a very large amount of ground at a very interesting and very low cost, very robust also. So we create a sort of main structures in which the first level was at nine meters from the ground floor. The second one, seven meters higher. And the third one, which was also the roof, seven meters higher. And we had seven meters between each of them and nine meters here. Each of these floors had one ton by square meters of resistance. So it was possible to build on these floors without having some foundations going to the ground floor. And this system was linked from ground floor to first level by a ramp. And then this ramp going to second level and then this ramp goes to the floor, to the roof always with this resistance of one ton by square meter. A sort of very high capacity. Probably it is a little more expensive but the advantage it is a sort of facility for the future. And on this system, on this ground, it was then possible to build a secondary, to build a school of architecture in red with new light floors dividing the main spaces with auditorium or different levels that was really the place of the school of architecture. And then it was possible to create two climates inside this. One climate, which is a normal climate, which is well heated in winter and summer all the time in green. And this sort of intermediate climate that was just a little heated in order not to have a very low temperature in winter up to 10 degrees and to take a big advantage of the climate of the city of Nantes, which is quite nice also. So then the sort of intermediate climate between the standard climate and the outside one. So a school that is very big, that is open to the outside creating relations with a high capacity, a sort of space where you can make models of 1,000 square meters and 10 meters high, where it is possible to... Not models of 1,000, the space is 1,000 square meters. Yeah, I'm sorry. Not the models. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but to make big models, but also some concerts or some dinners, the auditorium that can be open to the outside and to the river in order to have some different kind of scenography. And the space has always this capacity to provide a sort of extra space, a space where in permanence you can invent new activities. For example, here, this professor is making his lesson with a very small group of students in kind of this intermediate space. But also the students use the space at the end end to play piano or to play some nets inside between the columns to stay just at the limit of the sun and the shadow, normal system of classes. And always this transparency, these views that connect the different space between themselves. So the mezzanine looking to the intermediate space and then the city and the farm. And the ramp, this system of mobility that you can use by a lorry or a car, but that you can most of the time use to walk and to climb from one level to the next one that brings you to some outside spaces in the sun or on the top to this big roof. This empty space that can be filled with different programs, different functions, dance, art, exhibitions, cinema. So a sort of possibility for the school of architecture to invite many of the schools to invite some art exhibitions to be possible to have a set representation, to have a possibility to make some films inside a school that is a living space and in which probably the courses can be inside the normal classes and also outside. So this idea is important to work and to work with the existing, with the people, with the climate, the trees, the souls, with everything already there, with economy, to do more with less. So it can be in very beautiful landscapes to do with a sand dune, with the trees that are already there. When normally when you build a house, you erase the sand dune, you cut the trees and you build the house and to see how it is possible to take the existing, to bring the existing inside the project and to say the sand dune will stay exactly the same and the trees will be kept inside the system. So then to mix, to add to a situation, to see how it is possible to find a way not to cut the branches, to be very delicate with the roots and the trees and the bushes and to mix these steel structures with the existing structure of the forest. Do you see how the reflection of the light on the water can be taken from down to up and be reflected by the corrugated aluminum in order to have this light under the house but to keep the idea that you can work on the sand dune as if the house was not existing? To leave the trees crossing them and to have this capacity for the house to have the trees inside it, still moving with the wind and to take the maximum of advantage of the landscape. So it is this precision and this delicacy, this idea that in a situation, working with a situation, it means that probably a tip percent of the house is already there and what we have to add as architect, it is this 20% of materials more that will create a situation where it will possible to inhabit. So it can be in beautiful spaces, it can be also in the suburbs around the cities and we really work for more than 10 years on this idea that all we can propose an alternative to a very huge demolition of the blocks that starts in France for more than 10 years now where in the same times we have a lot of demands for social housing flats, more than 2 million people asking for and the same times the political decision it is to demolish these slabs built in the 60s. So we don't really understand this idea to demolish them and even if we can agree on the fact that the aesthetic can be discussed. So we want really to think about this situation with the plus or we can add to a situation and never take away things that already exist. So from this situation or it is possible to with this reference to the case 2D to push it to this situation and even better to push it to this one to give more ground, to give more space and more possibilities. Transform, open, extend to create more space and more light with a lower economy. So for example in Paris, this tower that was called Alcatraz and that normally should be demolished that has been transformed with new inhabiting bedrooms, winter gardens and balconies and new elevators that has been transformed with the people inside, with the 100 families inside and that have this possibility of extension of their flats. So the space that was like that becomes like that and the tower change of appearance. Or in Bordeaux, in this very large situation of blocks of the 60s where we see that the only transformation that was done it was to try to repaint the facade with these yellow and brown colors but this doesn't change really the life of the inhabitants and in face of the possibility of demolition of these blocks, we have proposed this alternative of transformation. We should never look at the block like that from outside and from far away. We should look at them from inside. Each apartment, each flat, each room. 30 years of time, of energy, of passion, of the inhabitants towards their walls, towards their decoration. The richness is there. The richness, we should see that and not the building from outside. So with difficult situations sometimes but all the time this idea of life, of diversity, of difference. So then this possibility to extend, to place four meters deep more in order to transform the windows in doors and to give the possibility to go from the bedroom, from the living rooms to an extra space. A sort of huge balcony. So 530 families were living there and we have transformed the buildings with all the families inside. They wanted for all of them, it was very important to have the possibility to sleep in their bedroom each night. So it was important not to disturb this way of living. And then you see the transformation. So it happens like that with these modular elements that were four meters deep and six meters from point five long. Already they are unrailed for protection. They were totally autonomous. So it means that they are their own foundation and they were just stabilized and fixed against the old facade. So we see here the position of the first levels and then the holes to stabilization that were prepared, the next level with the old facade. Then the opening of the old facade, placing the new sliding doors at the place of the old windows, the winter garden and then the occupation by the inhabitants. So more closely, the facade as it was before, we have a very small balcony and the very small windows. Then the opening, it was necessary to protect the family inside and also the workers because we had some asbestos and some polluted elements of dust to take care of. The old lady inside during two or three hours and then opening the system and placing the new windows to create a new situation from this to this. And immediately, because the people were still living during the works, immediately they feel this winter garden, this extra space with plants, with furniture, with the life takes place there with the light that was also there. So then it changed from that to that, from that to that situation, from that to this situation for 530 families. So it was nearly three times less expensive than the former project that was to demolish and to rebuild the same amount of flats. But instead to have a new flat that was nearly the same dimension as the existing one, here we have 50% of extension that will provide the flat much bigger than the standard ones, with less money to build more. And by the way, as the project is less expensive than the fact to make new ones, the rent was able to stay at the same amount. The addition of the rent plus the charges for heating, et cetera, is stayed exactly the same as before. And because it's always possible to see how we can add, there was also the possibility between the chimneys on top on the last level in reference to the KSTDs, to install eight KSTDs on top through the chimneys, crossing the new villa, and to create a fantastic situation from the 15th level looking to the city of Bordeaux. Or in this project in Saint-Nazaire in the west of France, very quickly, a very typical suburb of French cities, where from this little tower of 40 flats, 10 levels, we see all from inside. We consider the bathroom that was totally dark and a small living room, or it was possible to take this bathroom to place it at the place of this bedroom with then a big window of nine square meters, quite a big bathroom. And then to see this bedroom that we lost, we build it outside. We extend the living room by a large winter garden plus a balcony that will create this kind of new flats from inside. But in the same times, because we had some place around, it was possible to extend the winter gardens like you see here and create the new bedrooms, but also to say there is a densification which is possible. Instead of 40 flats, we can also think to have 80 flats with two new buildings, two outside wings that will have their own entrance and their own hall and that will be able to create densification. So extend the dimension of the flat and extend the number of the flats. So it means that in a situation where you don't create new routes or new systems of electrics or networks, we can really extend the situation. So no waste of ground. We really work in a very small area around the existing building and we give this capacity to have new flats and extended existing ones as it was during the works and after the works. And always with this interest to link the inside with the outside with the climate. So it's a step by step. It's a work about situations, precise situations of the city and to see on which of them by listening, by observing very carefully, we can see all these situations can be improved perhaps with new flats, perhaps with transformed flats and to see how we can be very precisely change and transform the situations. The city is made of hundreds and thousands of situations like that. And this new kind of urbanism, step by step, action by action, situation by situation, seems for us extremely relevant considering the existing city. It means to do or not to do for this commission from the Mary of Bordeaux about this plaza. The question was the embellishment of this plaza. And we have worked, listened precisely about the situation. And finally after three or four months of discussions, we came to the presentation of our project that was to say our project is to do nothing. We considered that this plaza is charming and that there is no reason to change anything. After some observation, listening the people around, finally the project has been done exactly like that. Of nearly to do nothing. Perhaps I'm going to explain. Palais de Tokyo. So working with, making do with in a former museum in Paris, which has been abandoned during many years that place, the Palais de Tokyo was an important museum built in 1937. And this was the National Contemporary Art Museum until the 75, when the new museum has been built, Center Pompidou. And this building has become a museum for cinema. And then abandoned after an important competition for big refurbishment and one year and a half of construction and suddenly the government decided to stop the project and the building stayed like a ruin during many, many months. So we applied to a competition for a very special project which was not a project of refurbishment but a project of installation of Center for Contemporary Creation, which mean different arts. First contemporary art, graphic design, music, but any other arts. And this term of installation was very important because it meant that it was not supposed to stay a long time, but something like five years. It was just an opportunity to reopen this place, waiting a much better situation while the government should again have an important budget to make refurbishment. So this place in the middle of Paris was, is very important, is something like 26,000 square meters. And we found that was the situation at the construction in 37 with two wings. On the left it's a national wing, on the right it's the city of Paris wing, which is still a museum of contemporary art. And we found the situation, the interior building like that with a lot of works of demolition which has been done inside, many holes in the floor, the stability which was damaged, no stairs, quite no stairs anymore, no elevators, no electricity, no heating, but a totally amazing space. So the brief was not very precise, we have just a very small budget of three millions of euros for this huge space to do something. And we have one week to come back with some ideas for this competition. It means that it was very, very special but also very exciting place. So we had a visit and that was really fascinating to see that place with different levels. This building is very special because it made of four levels but four ground floors. It means that all the levels because it's built on a hill, it's at the level of a street. So that's very amazing because you can come inside at every level from the street or for the square. But the situation was dramatic with all this sink destroyed. But we came back with, not with a project but just with a short text of two A4 just to explain what was first our feeling about the space but also our intentions how to make this project possible. And we say that first for us the architecture was already extremely amazing. It was a place for exhibiting because it has been done for exhibiting with a lot of natural light coming from different ways from big windows, from the roof, for different high windows. And that was really an amazing space and we didn't feel any desire to change anything in this quality of architecture. We didn't feel any desire to add any other architecture but just create the conditions, do the minimum so that it could open again for the public and for the artist. And finally, and we gave a kind of a method that we will start by the most important and necessary works like reinforcement of structures, reintroduce all the networks for electricity or systems, security systems to welcome the public, elevators and also we knew that for this small amount we could not complete all the building but in the first phase we really wanted to prepare the building for further renovation. It means that we didn't want just a very small space extremely well finished and completed but we prefer to make an important work of renovate the most important elements of the building even if it was not a scene or it was not used by the public but to restart the life of the building. And finally, what we have done is not visible but it's allowed to open again to the public. And finally, the chance of this project was this very small budget because we don't have any money so we were free to make any proposal and it was everything was accepted because three million is quite nothing for such impact. And that was our chance and the chance of the building because we really took care for any intervention that is was extremely the good one and the best one and not more. And finally we succeeded to open it after one year of construction and the success was very great and the government decided 10 years later to continue in that way because they were not in a situation to start an important project of renovation so they decided to give a second budget to continue the installation in this building and in the second phase in 2012 we could renovate all the roofs which we couldn't do in the first phase but again that was not very visible project but totally essential intervention so that it could open again to exhibitions and after the second phase after we left all the 26,000 square meters have been opened quite 90% for exhibition and for the public because it's not a museum so they didn't need any storage or technical rooms so we could dedicate all the existing spaces to the exhibition in using the qualities of all of them sometimes very dark like in the ground floor which is not open but it was interesting to use it for installation that needs a dark that was a former auditorium without any the seats have been lost but anyway it can be used for concert or artist interventions or the dark rooms which were supposed to be storage but finally which are very interesting for video or installations in dark conditions so we had just created in terms of strong installations this big stair which links different levels because they were not all linked by stair and the last level totally under transparent roofs more recently that was a competition in London that we did last year for the installation not installation but for a project of the museum of the city of London two former markets that was fish markets which is what's the name, it's a Smithfield market a huge place but an amazing space with this steel construction on the ground floor so there was two buildings but also an important basement where there was the fridge for the fish crossed by an important train line which crosses in the middle of this basement and the basement is quite not connected with the upper floors that was quite difficult to make a continuity to make a museum inside but here again our idea was to do the minimum because we found the space already so amazing that it was just necessary to do what was strictly necessary to make the exhibitions so we proposed to use only the basement to have the collection of the museum but to keep the markets of the ground floor as a public space without a program of museum that could be temporary exhibitions but that was not part of the temporary of the museum so it could be opened all along the day including when the museum was closed and in yellow we used the upper parts to make the administration and we could use the wonderful transparent roof of the markets to create there a very nice free public space so here in the contrary of the Palais Tokyo the bad luck was an amazing budget which was given for this project it was something like 120 millions and we didn't need 120 millions to make this project but it's something that it's quite impossible to explain and finally it seemed that they have hesitated a lot because we got a second prize but they finally selected the project which really shows that the budget is so amazing and finally the same idea of working with, making do with it's a reuse of an industrial hall in the north of France we applied for a competition to design inside this big hall a contemporary art center which was divided in two parts it's a public collection of contemporary art as we have something like 20 something in France in all the regions there's a public contemporary collection it means that the public collects artworks every year to build a public collection so the program was as two parts a part which was storage for the contemporary artworks with a special condition of conservation and the second part was the exhibition rooms to present the collection but also to make exhibition in coordination or in partnership with some other places in Europe so here when we visited the place that was this single building in the middle of nowhere quite high, 37 meters high 75 meters long and 25 meters large this was a place where it was a former industrial shipyard that was totally demolished in the 80s when this industry started to work anymore and the city decided to keep on this building as a memory of the place because it was the last hall where the pieces of the big boats were assembled before they left to the sea so in the memory of the inhabitants that was a very iconic building that's the people of the city called the cathedral so the city decided to keep this building and to put inside this contemporary art collection so while we were doing the visit for the competition we were really fascinated and touched by this amazing space totally empty with a quality of light and a very strong structure especially the ground where it was possible to have on every square meter more than five tons that's a very solid space and after the visit we had immediately the intuition that this was a mistake to fill the building with floors with rooms, with closed rooms, with air conditioning and we decided not to do that that was the existing and we decided to keep it empty as an extra space and to build the new building juxtaposed to the existing with exactly the same shape but built in a contemporary way with a structure that could shelter all the collections and the storage and a second envelope with an intermediate climate in between which would allow to minimize the needs in terms of air conditioning or heating because we could provide with intermediate space already intermediate temperature so we won the competition on this basis we did the project as we planned with this double construction in the budget of the project because of course it would not be fair to propose to do more and to spend more that's the rule is to do more to spend at maximum the same and this is the final project the main hall has been kept we have just made some security installations some doors to receive very big events we can have a concert with for example 3,000 people and this is connected here on that side with this new building with the system of double envelope and in between envelope we have the stairs which connect all the levels and the goal is to bring the visitors as soon as possible to the rooftop this is one of the exhibition room with double height which was requested by the program and the last level which is under the roof is an extra space because it's above the box of the program but it's an amazing space which allows to have this great panorama this great view on the harbor on the north and on the other side to the seashore so this place is as not the conditions of the interior space it means that it's not heated but it's totally the climate is dependent of the resources of the light, the sun so it creates a very nice intermediate climate with these wonderful views around it's done with inflated ETFE material so it can give this transparency towards the outside it can be used for exhibitions but also for the opening parties as well as the workshop I did recently a workshop with University of Madrid and we came here for a week to make a workshop they kindly let us stay here for one week to make an architectural workshop some platforms which are above the main hall to see what happens there but also they allow to bring important artworks to the last levels through the crane that we have reintroduced on the moving cranes that we have reintroduced on the top of this building so working with always offers an amazing amount of possibilities and also different ways of thinking that we would not find in creating from nothing so we definitely think that it's a good way to deal with the existing and also it forces to change the way of doing because first the method is to look carefully to observe, to make inventories to check what is good, what is worse and really to work with what we have in hands and just make the adjustment that allow to change the situation for a better one sometimes it's quite nothing, sometimes it can be a lot but it's important to work with this attitude of observing with positive eyes and never think that because it's old, because it's existing it would be negative or it would have a lot of constraining elements but just look at it carefully and do what is necessary to use it Thank you very much It was too long No, it's okay So stay, stay We'll be short Thank you for a fantastic lecture It's really inspiring to start the semester with you speaking and I was thinking this semester we have a big symposium called Constructing Practice where we've invited about 20 kind of practices that are under 10 years and I was thinking about your trajectory so as I mentioned a little bit in my introduction at the height of kind of formal explorations and right before Bilbao gets built you have this kind of a project that is completely at the opposite end of kind of just expression and form-making close to SML Excel coming out at the height of this course which has a lot to do with representation but also with the section you hold on to the plan this idea that the plan remains the kind of surface of freedom versus the kind of freedom of the section in a way as the kind of conversation about globalization globalization impact on architecture global practice etc you remain pretty localized with a kind of very embedded form of practice and at the height of kind of architect's engagement with developers etc you still are committed to public work working with the state etc and I see Berna in the audience and once we talked about that and Berna said you know as an architect what's important is not sort of what you're doing in relation to your peers but what you're doing in relation to your own work as a kind of trajectory and it's so fascinating to me that you do become a kind of reference which I mean today the work is so contemporary I mean in terms of opening up the kind of environmental conversation opening up the conversation around the envelope which kind of really takes off starting to tackle and I see Jorge who directs our preservation program really engaging with the idea of fragments of preservation of reuse and also this sense of hybridizing I was thinking about Le Corbusier and his difficulty with Bacanese Bacanese I come from Beirut and for him like you have to cut the Bacani and no you bring back the Bacani as this kind of more southern almost so it's just really fascinating to me this kind of very sustained trajectory which is I think really today resonates so much more in terms of what architects are looking at but at the same time obviously there was tremendous invention I mean it's not like you're just kind of sitting you know resistant to what's happening it's a real kind of sense of commitment and I wanted first to talk about construction in terms of you know the investment in the buildings and the built work and how because the projects are gorgeous I mean they're beautiful yes you talk about them as if you've like you know bought polycarbonate from off the shelf but it's not you know it's not Home Depot it's a real sense of technology of knowledge of construction and I wanted to know you know how that evolved in your work in terms of do you engage with a certain number of contractors like what is your engagement with the kind of the building process and how have you developed these technologies which are both off the shelf and incredibly now you have such knowledge of what you bring and sophistication so why don't you expand on that a little bit I think we could resume it in two ways I think structural question it can be concrete or steel or wood we'd never really work with but it depends of conditions we have not something that we like but what we're really interested in developing frames so it means columns, beams, floors so the idea of precision but also the idea of standardization of efficiency of robustness seems for us extremely important so the structure is the first point is building the ground on which we want to be to have a maximum of facility after so we want it to be very efficient so in each situation we try to see what is the best material for that what is the best standardized system for that so it depends of the dimension of the project for the School of Architecture of Nantes that was a big project of 30 concrete was better but inside the concrete there was a steel construction that would be inside and the second point which is very important and we learn a lot with professional greenhouse technology I remember when we were in Bordeaux we were going to a little city in southwest, Agin where there was a sort of festival during two years of all the materials and the techniques about salads, vegetables plantations, fruits, etc and it was fantastic to learn all these technologies there so it's incredible to see that for growing roses, flowers in Ecuador or in Kenya your climate is very special or even in Sweden you can really use the existing climate it can be cold or it can be warm and you have these systems doing with the climate and which is perfect for growing roses and the roses when people have 1,000 square meters of roses or 10,000 square meters of roses it's extremely valuable so it means that if it is 21 degrees it is not 22 it is extremely precise the number of looks going on the petals is extremely precise the humidity is extremely precise the wind, the air inside everything is extremely detailed so you have some filters you have some and all of this is done by just changing a little the climate outside and so it was fascinating for us to see the high degree of performance of these systems of making climates inside and in the same time it's efficiency and in the same time it's economy so we were thinking if we are doing that for the roses we should also try to do that for people but the combination of these two systems making grounds as large as possible as efficient as pragmatic as possible plus working with these techniques of professional greenhouse situation already we could say the house is done I think we have learnt a lot from every project and from the beginning we had the kind of feeling that it was absolutely necessary to control I'm not sure that control is right to master the construction and the economy because without doing that it was quite impossible to convince about our ideas and we were also convinced that it was necessary to build and not just to make projects so the first project the house let up it was in that way extremely important because we learnt a lot we had this extreme proposition that we did to the clients to build buy some more for the same cost because they didn't have more and we were really committed in that question but it was our first project and as young architects and of course we didn't know how to make it so we had to work very hard and we had to understand for example what makes the cost of the construction and we understood very early that very basic calculation with a basic cost per square meters it's a very big mistake you never go very far with that so that was very important to calculate to understand that every element as a cost which is in function of its complexity every square meter at not the same cost and when we have understood that we have gone very fast in our control of this relationship between construction, cost, complexity and we have tried to develop so it means that the rigor, the exactness precision are extremely important and this is something that we have really learnt is that more you propose strong ideas more you want to go far in some ideas more you must be rigorous and serious in the way of doing so we have learnt from every project and we can say that for all the projects working with the engineers we have always brought the initial solutions of construction we have never learnt from engineers which was the solution we have learnt how to make it afterwards but for example the construction with big slabs and columns which normally are not used for housing we have proposed it for housing and the engineer didn't want to make it not for the houses but for bigger projects but finally we worked with manufacturers and we arrived to this finally self-knowledge about the construction but it's really extremely important to know about the construction the construction is not something which is the constructing system is not something which is decided when the design of the project is done it goes perfectly simultaneously of the design of the project if you talk about open space about the freedom of use you talk about open structures and an open structure is not a structure with walls with a lot of concrete with bearing walls and facade so it's very important to connect very early the process of construction the process of design and the space it's really interesting because one of the again one of the conversations that have been happening here is how much the field is again being advanced through building and rather than I was wondering about the role of competitions in your practice do you do many competitions or is it more commissions and through building in terms of growing the practice very often it is competition because also in France all the public sector is done with the system of competitions so we are not so happy with that because it's stranger when you are I think the architect is the only job where you are making competitions all your life like that until 60 or 70 years old spending nights and weekends but yes sometimes it's it depends sometimes it's interesting because it can give the client different options different alternatives but I think there is a big waste of energy of architects sometimes it's well we don't have competitions here in the US so we are very jealous now the problem is most of the time in the framework of a competition you cannot really expose ideas because you have to provide a representation images of the reality more realistic than the reality after two months of work and that's impossible and it's really frustrating because most of the time the decision is made I must say especially in France because the jury are not lasting very long it's decided by the view of the images and if you don't have in the jury some very strong personalities who can really understand what is interesting in the ideas and which is the potential of the project most of the time we lose competitions because our ideas take time to convince and when we have done project with direct commissions like houses or some other project that was not easy to convince people because we had a little time and we could really expose all the aspects including the doubts including the questions but that was a continuous process of discussion in competition it's like a blind you are blind you propose something and you cannot even make a presentation you cannot defend your ideas you are just to send an image most of the time we don't want to make realistic images when it's expected so very often we lose competitions but it's also interesting because competitions it used to be that competitions were not about realistic images they were about concepts and ideas and now it's almost like a kind of commercial there's a transition where now architects are basically producing entire schemes with cost and renderings and animation so there's a kind of shift I think this is a problem that architecture is and especially for housing but for public buildings or for public use it's too much connected with communication of the cities of the politics so they of course they are really excited or interested by will this building communicate something of my work of the vision of the city and so that's very, very difficult to be placed in such a situation I think the difficulty is that we try to build some projects that create some relations with the city or that participate to the urban fabric and more and more the system of competition also the system of the command brings to the production of objects that are disconnected to each other so because most of the time we have some plots and an urbanist that define master plan with different plots and for each plot we ask a group of architects to make a competition so we have some setbacks to the limits so each one is producing his little cake like a patisserie and this is the system today and we have the feeling that what is interesting it is to work with the existing city for example the school of architecture of Nantes is more an urban project than an architectural project we try to create relations we try to invite people we try to open the space of the streets to the inside of the school so these questions are not so defined in the competition so we can bring them and hopefully sometimes we win but most of the time not I wanted to ask then about this question of context the city is the kind of context and your insertion of fragments within it do you find that you are obviously very comfortable working in the context that you know there is a kind of really deep knowledge in France have you expanded beyond or is there a desire to expand beyond or do you need that kind of rootedness in understanding the kind of context with that level of depth of knowing those cities it's not really a link to the precise knowledge that you have of the country around you because it's just a question of attitude towards a location, a place and towards question so we have the feeling that we work in France or in some countries in Europe but we could work anywhere because we would arrive on the situation with the same openness, with the same without any pre-formatted ideas but just with the attitude of observation, of inventory of trying to understand the site, the questions and then to think to the response so it's not to my opinion it's not something which is localized so for now we have not really the feeling that we would be more useful in far countries we work around our countries but it's not a decision we could work I think anywhere you both teach on a regular basis how do you bring that sense of reality and the real to pedagogy because in the school we're always even more so than in the practice we're always dealing with discursive questions, questions of representation drawing, there's always how do you bring the sense to students of the kind of tangible and the real first we we try to explain to them that everything starts with listening, observing looking at precisely the reality we are very positive regarding the places where we go and we try to share that with the students not just a very quick look just look how far your curiosity can go because we have the world is totally as plenty of fantastic situations and we like the idea that if we know some of the situations it's plenty of fragments of space that we can reuse or we can reincorporate or add or superimpose to other situations we like this idea of using fragments of the reality to create a new imaginary like we are fascinated by filmmakers because we have the feeling that the filmmaker precisely is able to to create a story and making shootings in different places of the world and creating a film in another place of the world with all these shootings so we try to work with the students in that way we will start from the reality of spaces that you have already experimented where you know that it is very nice or it is very warm or very humid or that the Thai food is very good and that the restaurant is very small and very nice etc so all these images that we can like if we could try to make a sort of bookshelf of all these memories in order to reuse it to re-transform and to extend it to change to make and to make superimposition with all of them so a sort of situations or we don't have to add brick on brick but situation on situations and this is very interesting in the cinema and I don't know why it doesn't appear so much in architecture but so it is a way with the students I think Anne and me we try to to work with and also to to go to their at the maximum of their intentions we try to help them in this way Yes, we try to to say some that we don't want to learn to them what we are doing but just to let them understand how we arrive to do this process of design and construction and for us it is very important to learn to students that it is very important to have positions to have their own position to know why they want to do something to have position on the housing on the culture and then to to make their project and their design with this position in mind because we have always in the project to we want always to achieve intentions so that is very important to have intentions and also to to be resistant to because the process is long and many times we have to come back and to come back and sometimes it doesn't work we want to give up and we come back but it is not very comfortable because we have also ourselves maybe more questions than certitudes so we try to also to explain our experience but to make them also we try to make them stronger towards what we have to do as architect which is first to we need to be strong and architect to defend our ideas and to go to the end great so any questions from the audience yes Eric thank you very much my question is about appropriation which I guess as architects you you perform your appropriate greenhouses your appropriate structures but you are also interested in the appropriation by the users and could you help us situate your work relative to the work inspired by Umbertaiko the open work Superstitutio Jonar Friedman if we think of the 60s and the interest in the frame and appropriation but much of it never really built maybe Pompidou was one kind of example of something that was actually kind of inspired by that but you're actually building these frames these frameworks that are appropriated do you feel a connection to this other history and also how do you then document the work represented given that it's not fixed no indeed we we are very interested I present it this moment of the modern movement which for us was really important in the 50s and then I think there was another period which was called about utopia which is absolutely interesting also with Archigram with Sederic Price Jonar Friedman and I think it is very interesting today to reconsider this utopia that is 30 or 40 years later and we have to really to see how we can deal in the same time with the modernist movement of the 50s that was a bit working on the Tabula Raza and also this work of the utopia that was much more working on the superimposition to existing city so and we like the idea to to work on this and yes, Jonar Friedman we I met him recently and I like this idea when he is talking even not of participation he doesn't believe so much, he is talking improvisation so it means at one moment it suggests that there is something starting and the next step can be perhaps different than the first step with the creativity of a team marked by the architect and the user etc so I think as architect what seems very important for us it depends on the programs and sometimes what is the step that we have not to do at what moment should we leave the project but precisely the next step will be done better by the user or by the artist than by us so it is this point that I think is really interesting to consider. Sometimes you can go further and some for example for artists or for students of architecture or for inhabitants we are very happy to see that in the school of Nantes in this new building there were before three associations of students in the old school and in this new school we have actually 17 associations of students. I don't know what they are doing but there are sometimes sculptures, sometimes theatres, sometimes recycling etc but we have 17 associations of students so it means that the space at one moment has a sort of capacity to push some possibilities so we think it's very important because today actually we talk a lot about participation and most of the projects they are starting with participation but I think it's important for an architect to open the possibilities before participation on a situation, on a contraining situation is difficult so it's better if you can participate on a maximum situation and not on a minimum situation when you have a very minimum to share it's difficult to have a sort of agreement between people but when the situation is more open and this is probably the point that the architect can invent or propose then the participation can be much more positive and effective Thank you I always like to come and listen to you guys because I always learn a lot of things and I have a question but first before that what strikes me listening to you is that when you start an architectural project you can start with culture concept, you can start with ideas and then you refine it and you go perhaps to a maximum economy of means and you arrive at a very very selective intelligence of how you translate or transpose that culture or that concept into an absolutely right project but you can do it the other way around and I always have the feeling that you start with a maximum economy of means and then you refine it until you arrive at the concept and you arrive at culture and that's what I thought was quite fascinating at what you showed us is that these projects in a sense are extremely refined intellectually and I mean that as a compliment now the issue that I and that's where my question comes you pointed out a minute ago about competition that the world is more and more interested in pure sort of hyperrealist representations and indeed this is absolutely correct so the question is how do you educate the public how do you educate the clients talking about friends how do you educate the authorities to go back to that refinement of the intelligence of what you arrive at and not be seduced by very easy magazine images it's about education but not education of students it's education of clients I think there is two different kind of situation where we are in a situation where we are in direct discussion with a client for social housing or private houses or even sometimes for public building like Palais de Cure you have a representative of the Ministry of Culture which can be interested in so in that case I'm not sure that we are educating because they are already educated persons we just try to find the way to discuss together and to bring them on board in our in our world but also by listening what they have to do because it's not one way work so those persons I think it's not so difficult because we are very convinced we bring a lot we work a lot and we bring a lot of informations of documentation so we arrive to make it what is more difficult is for example you mentioned the authorities for example this work of transformation it seems very successful everywhere because we are invited to talk about it we had a lot of awards but finally the three projects that we have made we know very well why we have made them two of them that was the director of the social housing company who was director in two different cities who is very involved in that question we commissioned these two projects they are the other in Bordeaux and the first one in Paris the city of Paris which was not in the national plan of urban renovation wanted to make a special project but a part of this three project we have no other one so we didn't arrive to convince really anyone that is so interesting so in fact it's more difficult than we can imagine but it's why we think that it's so important to do to build because something which has a reality is very powerful even small so it's very important we have always tried to make all the efforts really to complete the project and to push them to the end without compromise because we had really the feeling that it's very important it's interesting when the challenge is clear I remember for example with the house in the trees the young clients they had this property for long and they never built there because they think they started to build there they will destroy the landscape that they like and they say finally one day they say we would really like to build something but to keep exactly things like it is ok so we say we will not cut the trees and we will not change the dune ah and there perhaps it is a little too much but finally we convince them that we could go to the maximum of this challenge and this is when this happens it's very nice but very often some clients or some cities they have some slogans they talk about ecology they talk about sustainability they talk about affordability but if you really want to work with them in this question you see that at one moment they don't want to be so much ecologic they don't want to much so much affordable they don't want to much so there is a sort of resistance most of the time it is very often it is slogan and it's very difficult to fight against that and this is really difficult so with some private clients it is more easy most of the time we have this difficulty to see what we really understand about your objectives ok we can go 100% on this but very often it's just a slogan and not a real objective it's very nice with our first clients for the house it was our first client so we didn't really know what to discuss with people and they were also very timid and they didn't know what to ask to us they didn't know what an architect is doing so and finally we had the first meeting and they say to us you will recognize our they were living in a block you will recognize our block because we have a blue in front of the door because every time we have holidays we drive straight to the south of Spain to have a very nice weekend in front of the sea so we arrived for this first meeting and we had the intuition that we had to to move the discussion out of the very basic discussion about the square meters the number of rooms so we arrived with some books and especially this big book of the case study house and we proposed to them to turn the pages of the book and to discuss about the space and to explain to them why we were we like this space and and finally they step by step they entered in the game and they gave themselves their own feelings about sometimes it was about a piece of furniture sometimes it was about the view but in fact that was a very intuitive meeting that we had together but it was very successful because we started together on a very very good basis so they understood that they have to forget everything so they had in mind and to let them drive in the process and on our side we were very happy because we have talked about something interesting so it's also important to follow our intuitions from the education of an architect to the education of a client that's the next book I was also thinking about the need for building you know at some point you mentioned you know instead of concept content and context it's construction cost and complexity which is a kind of interesting but it remains a tool of course the goal of the project cannot be construction economy this is a tool not to make any compromise on your designs so my question is somehow related to the first one I was very interested by the fact that you presented Meson Domino as a kind of finished architecture just ready to be appropriated and of course that allows a lot of freedom and flexibility but when I see the pictures of these small gatherings and seminars at the School of Architecture in Nantes I can't help thinking of the side effects of this kind of space and this probably depends on the culture it's not the same everywhere but I'm thinking for example that some people might feel a certain lack of intimacy or overexposition or disorientation some sort of lack of human scale at some particular moment so I wonder if you reflect on these issues during the design project and the design process and you find strategies or design strategies to address these issues or you just leave it to the people to the inhabitants to find their own tactics in the case have you ever had complaints or problems with people feeling this sort of this way in your buildings? First we are interested in depths of buildings for example the building of Nantes is 70 meters large and 120 meters long 7 meters high for each level so the light is going from one side to another side so the intimacy is given also by the depths so if you are in the middle you are far from the facade and then you have this idea of protection but you have the possibility of mobility so you can be in the middle of intimacy so the idea of depths is very important in the project in Moulouse the flats are 20 meters deep so very often in the school I learned when I see some other professors sometimes it says ok 12 is good so you will have a good amount of light on one side and the other one on the other side when we make 20 it means that in between you have an extra space which is a place of mobility so it means that in winter perhaps your bed will be very close to the facade and the sun in the morning and in summer the bed can be more inside so all of this is this possibility of mobility which is also a possibility but we really think about capacity so large dimension of space it is that you can do more things when the space is large that when the space is small if you want to create partitions if you want to divide it's more easy to divide a large space and a small space so it is always in mind we have this question of maximum of choice so then in this kind of space you have some people that they stay inside or some people that work with some filters some people that made their own furniture to protect so it is for us it is really a question of what offers the maximum of choice so most of the time it is large as possible and each time it is open to the outside it is transparent because we know also that transparency can be filtered or pacified closed totally when the contrary is not possible when you have a window in a facade in concrete you cannot demolish your facade so it is what gives the maximum of possibility so after that we are confident in the fact that the client, the inhabitant sometimes he will leave everything open sometimes he will use curtains or some inside partitions that have to be always easy to do or to install in order to define his own character of his house and also this character will change some days you want to see outside some days you prefer to be more closed so it is something that has to be extremely dynamic and mobile so it is why we really like this system of filters so we have a curtain which is also that we use in the night to keep the calories inside after that we have the main sliding door which is transparent after that we have a winter garden and after that we have a balcony so it means that we have a different multi layer system that will for the user give him the possibility to choose or to use this element or this element in order to define his own intimacy in function of the climate or in function of his mood or his character to do one last one last question thank you for that before coming I was talking to a friend about how much we love your work before the discussion kind of quickly reached a depressing conclusion that at least in America you don't get paid to do nothing so in the spirit of reality can you share with us the economics of your office how do you survive doing less how do you survive doing less but we have been paid to do nothing we have been paid we have been paid because the project of doing nothing is a project and so we had the time of design of thinking of studies and we have been paid for that so it's important in architecture not to be paid because of the result but because of the process and how you respond to the question which is asked so it's very important to be clear with that at the beginning if you are asked to sing something and it's why it's sometimes so ambiguous because if you are paid the production of the the volume that the object that you have built there is no reason to be intelligent you have to build more and much and much bigger and much and much materials expensive materials so now it's very important to define the more intelligent way of doing architecture which is first giving our skills to the understanding of a complex situation and then to find alone or together with a number of consultants that you take in your team how you can propose some solutions some propositions to respond to this complex question and it's extremely important as an architect that we can explain our work like this and not just providing forms but it is also for me it's a bit like also if you feel a bit sick sometimes and then you go to see the doctor and he listen to all what you have to say and finally he says oh no I think it's okay I think it's okay perhaps tomorrow you will be fine first you pay the doctor and also you are quite happy because you are thinking that you are sick and in fact you are not so it's a good reason to pay the architect architecture is pure intelligence so it's normal that it should be paid thank you so much thank you both