Search
|

The creation of value through architecture

  • Publish On 11 January 2017
  • Frédérique Monjanel

Within the context of the shift from public architectural procurement towards private procurement, the real estate branch of the financial group ING has stood out on a number of occasions by powerfully driving and creating unique architectural operations, while avoiding sidelining their qualities as real estate promoters. Frédérique Monjanel gives us some insight into her career, from her time working in the agency of Jean Nouvel to her current activities as Senior Developer for ING Real Estate. ING could be a testament to the trust that architects should grant their partners in the private sector, resulting in common strategies between clients and architects in the service of cities and their inhabitants.

(interview with Aurélien Gillier  and Christophe Le Gac)

Frédérique Monjanel is the head of real estate development for VINCI Construction France since 2011.

How does one go from architectural design, working with Jean Nouvel, to real estate development for an international firm?

I joined Jean Nouvel’s agency in 1987, where I began working on the project for the Onyx center for culture in Saint-Herblain with Myrto Vitart. After that I participated in the call for tenders for the Centre des Congrès in Tours, that we ended up winning. We had a lot of similar projects coming from public procurement, and then the agency went into a nose dive. The structure had grown too quickly and there were too many teams, which led at one point to a big cash-flow problem and a significant management problem.

In 1994, Jean Nouvel left to pursue new horizons with a new associate. It was at that time that I began to work with ING on various projects, in particular a project in the Czech Republic, initiated by an encounter between Paul Koch and Jean Nouvel. We thus began to work with private, international procurement. In the beginning it was Paul Koch, ING and Jean Nouvel who suggested a strategic urban study on the city of Prague.

Opening on contemporary practices

The response provided by Jean Nouvel was more a vision of city renewal than a classic urban study, thus allowing a private promoter to directly visualize zones that had added value and those that could be potentially developed.

Bibliography

explore

Article

The potential of the night

PCA-STREAM

Article

The potential of the night

Once a sanctuary for dreams and imagination, nighttime has now been relegated to the mere role of a utilitarian prelude to daytime. Nocturnal realms possess an alchemical power capable of transfiguring our perceptions. However, when viewed through the lens of urban uses, the night also exacerbates inequalities and raises questions about the possibility of achieving an urban night that is accessible to everyone. Exploring the range of possibilities associated with the night reveals it as a space-time where complex interactions are woven that could be revitalized through a chronotopic and inclusive architecture.

Discover
Article

Educating Citizen Architects: for a meaningful architecture

Andrew Freear

Article

Educating Citizen Architects: for a meaningful architecture

Andrew Freear runs the Rural Studio program at Auburn School of Architecture (USA). He believes that schools of architecture have an ethical responsibility to train citizen architects who are locally committed to concrete projects and experientially connected to contexts and places. To design an inclusive city, the Studio adopts an experimental field approach, combining analysis of the territory’s endemic problems, understanding of residents’ needs and new construction techniques. Read the full interview published in STREAM 05!

Discover
Vidéo

Beautiful like an encounter on the glass roof of colored clouds

Daniel Buren, Philippe Chiambaretta

Vidéo

Beautiful like an encounter on the glass roof of colored clouds

For Daniel Buren, architecture is an open-air studio. In an exclusive interview with architect Philippe Chiambaretta, he talks about his site-specific work, where art and architecture meet, just like the Nuages Colorés that cover the scales of the 175 Haussmann glass roof.

Discover
Podcast

“ Architecture has a unique relationship with the transformation of reality: it is, in a way, atlastic. ”

Architecture is a political practice

Manuel Bello Marcano

Podcast

“ Architecture has a unique relationship with the transformation of reality: it is, in a way, atlastic. ”

Architecture is a political practice

Manuel Bello Marcano is an architect, lecturer at ENSA Saint-Etienne and sociologist of the imaginary at the Centre d’études pour l’actuel et le quotidien – CEAQ, Université Paris Descartes (Center for Current and Everyday Studies at Paris Descartes University). In his view, architecture is an act of aggregation designed to put the world in order: in this sense, he is interested in the political fictions mobilized to equip our thinking and, in this case, to build a “ togetherness ”. Follow his words and discover animality understood as community.

Discover
Podcast

“ Making the most out of urine in agriculture isn't a technological or technical issue, it's a matter of social organization. ”

Recycling urine to fertilize the soil

Louise Raguet

Podcast

“ Making the most out of urine in agriculture isn't a technological or technical issue, it's a matter of social organization. ”

Recycling urine to fertilize the soil

Since urine is an inexhaustible ecological fertilizer, why not use it instead of chemical fertilizers that are expensive to produce? Designer Louise Raguet suggests bringing back to the fields what has been collected there. Her research with the LEESU laboratory (École des Ponts) has led her to develop a unique project: urine separation in the future Saint-Vincent de Paul district of Paris.

Discover
Vidéo

Machine system

Victor Cord'homme

Vidéo

Machine system

Through animation, installation, sculpture and painting, Victor Cord’homme reveals the complexity and tireless workings of an urban system over which humans are losing control. He works on the autonomy of his installations and exhibitions, whose behavior varies according to the audience, invited to interact yet powerless to do so.

Discover
Vidéo

Reusing turbine blades : the winds of change

Minh Nguyễn, Yoann Malinge

Vidéo

Reusing turbine blades : the winds of change

The growth in energy consumption and the obsolescence of our infrastructures suggest that by 2030, we’ll have a stock of 60,000 tonnes of end-of-life wind turbines per year. To absorb this material on an industrial scale, we need to invent new ways of producing, consuming and building. With this in mind, the La Paletière project aims to reuse turbine blades – composite materials with multiple properties – by turning them into roofing elements.

Discover
Podcast

“ Unfortunately, the ambiance is seen as a corrective factor to be dealt with. ”

Air in architecture

Emmanuel Doutriaux

Podcast

“ Unfortunately, the ambiance is seen as a corrective factor to be dealt with. ”

Air in architecture

The challenges of air in architecture encompass a wide range of considerations that can affect the shape of a building, its degree of openness, the proportion of voids and solids, or the implementation of specific technical solutions. To reconcile seemingly contradictory requirements, such as the tension between energy efficiency and natural ventilation, architects and engineers are redoubling their inventiveness. Air, due to its invisibility, invites us to create an atmosphere and to consider buildings in terms of breathability.

Discover