a+u Architecture and Urbanism 22:04_619

a+u’s April issue features Bruther, a Paris-based architectural studio established by Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot in 2007. Describing architecture as a “combat sport,” the duo rose to international prominence with the completion in 2014 of Cultural and Sports Center in the Saint Blaise neighborhood of Paris. Rooted in the cultural geography of France, the project displays a nuanced mediation of urbanity, structure, and program that is informed by cosmopolitan currents and the architects’ belief in the malleability of buildings. Competitions, investigations, and experiments are all part of a work process they see as “a game of strategy and a balancing act” – balancing abstraction with function, diversity with uniformity, opacity with transparency. Twenty-nine projects, ranging from collective housing and cultural and educational institutions to pavilions and exhibitions, are presented…

“I’m going to move to Reykjavik where there was a famous chess tournament. I might have a chance there.” This line by Jean-Luc Godard in Grandeur et décadence d’un petit commerce de cinéma (1986) sets the tone for our relationship to failure. It plays with the word échec’s double meaning in French. Échec is a mistake, a disappointment, a defeat, as well as a strategy game. Defeat, strategy, and play constitute 3 major components of our practice. We must not lose, even if we cannot win it all. And if we win, we move on to the strategy game – the game of chess – in order to achieve our objectives. Architecture is a combat sport. The life of our architectural practice is punctuated by competing due dates. Most of our projects are…

Located in a mutating territory punctuated by new large-scale projects, the Maison de la Recherche et de l’Innovation (also known as MRI, or New Generation Research Center) participates in the urban renewal of the Caen peninsula. From the point of view of both the program and its architectural manifestation, it is a new object free on all 4 sides. Reinterpreting the image of the warehouse, but vertically, it spares the use of the ground. The project offers framed views of its surroundings and is gentle on its neighbors. MRI is a volume of potential, a device capable of creating a set of rich and varied situations. A prefabricated, high-performance structure determines free, flexible, evolving platforms, with maximum habitability. The project superimposes a public square, an exhibition space, a conference space, a…

Planned for the central strip of the École Polytechnique district in Palaiseau, this future activity center has a design characterized by the obviousness of a layout inspired by the urban figure-ground of US campuses. The continuity of the developments, both built and unbuilt, forms a succession of large compact and open blocks, and there are perceptible boundaries between public areas and private spheres. As part of this urban logic, the project exudes a strength that relies on the efficiency and simplicity of the implemented devices. And by adopting the morphology of the neighboring blocks, the architectural proposal emphasizes the urban lines of force while affirming a generous central space that guarantees great visual depth. This collective garden constitutes a reference space. It provides views and breathing space; people meet there. Responding to…

A new university residence for researchers has been added to a rich collection of modern architecture at Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. The majestic park of the Cité internationale is not the promise of a carte blanche: a memory permeates the site, and its string of buildings presents recurrences. Indeed, it is necessary to deal with rather unitary buildings with simple and recognizable silhouettes that have crossed time. The project, located on the edge of the park, follows the same logic, and proposes a compact volume. It is a split cube, as high as it is wide. Its organization responds to the logic of subdivision. The residence is made up of 3 parallel blades, with the housing units occupying the sides while the hollowed-out middle blade brings together common spaces…

Although Saint-Blaise has the highest density of any district in Europe, its activities, architecture, populations, and uses lack true diversity. Located near the Rue des Pyrénées and Rue des Maraîchers, which are vectors of activity, Saint-Blaise does not extend their dynamic. This activity center reacts to this situation by asserting itself as a compact object that frees up as much of the ground as possible, unfolding vertically, enabling the organization of activities. Stratified and composite, it deploys an architectural vocabulary that runs counter to its environment by substituting abstraction with the expression of function, diversity with the uniformity of textures and colors, and the great opacity of the surrounding architecture with transparency. Its subtly curved morphology gives the project a sculptural character and proposes a break with the utilitarian architecture that…