At 175 Haussmann, PCA-STREAM brought together two buildings to create a new cutting-edge office complex, completed by an emblematic contemporary extension, to house the headquarters of the Lazard bank. The interior design team created the public and reception areas, using hospitality codes and a combination of openness and confidentiality.
Materials
Perspectives
Mathieu Arnoux, Professor at the University of Paris and Director of Studies at the EHESS, Isabelle Bensidoun, economist at the CEPII, Vincent Charlet, economist and founder of the Fabrique de l’Industrie and Liliana Doganova, sociologist and researcher at the CSI des Mines de Paris. This concluding conference looks at the social and economic dynamics associated with the exploitation of materials on a national and global scale. The war in Ukraine has revealed our dependence on our neighbours and reopened questions of sovereignty and self-sufficiency. France has been less affected by the Russian gas embargo than Germany, but the transition to renewable energies will not happen without the rare earths that we import mainly from China. The limits of globalisation seem to have been reached. What does this mean for our industry, our sectors and our economic policy? What role will the markets play, particularly the carbon market, in encouraging national and European materials?
Living matter
With Marie Sarah Adenis, artist, Aurélie Mossé, research professor at ENSAD, and Simon Trancart, Head of Adaptative Laboratory Evolution at Ginkgo BioWorks. Wood is often referred to as a living material because it reacts to ambient humidity and develops a patina. However, when a tree is cut down to exploit its wood, it dies and ceases to photosynthesise. What other forms of living matter can we cultivate and grow to build and create, and what ethics should we apply? What does the future hold for organic materials that can regenerate rapidly or perhaps never die and continue to evolve as living matter? From the colourimetric properties of microbes to the use of algae to develop alternative chemical reactions to form cements and ceramics that emit less carbon, what possibilities does living matter offer us for rethinking creation?
Neo composites
With Mathieu Merlet Briand, artist, Benoit Roman, research director at the CNRS, Xavier Baris from Kairos and Michael Gaultois, Chief Scientific Officer of Fairmat. With the growing disenchantment of the public and designers alike with plastic, perceived as the offspring of the oil years and the symbol of a disposable world, the development of new materials that respond to contemporary challenges by proposing circular production schemes is long overdue. The Deeptech ecosystem is struggling to get off the ground in France, given the investment required. The government and the regions are encouraging research and entrepreneurial initiatives such as the FLOWER project to develop composites made from flax fibre, a plant widely grown in France. What are the neo-composites of tomorrow? What new mythologies do they invoke?
8 Laborde — Gide Loyrette Nouel
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PCA-STREAM has restructured the Pépinière military barracks to create the new Gide-Loyrette-Nouel law firm headquarters. Designed as a sign of the firm's renewed way of working, it emphasizes teamwork and exchange, with a focus on horizontality, transparency and hospitality.
Wood
France has the 4th largest forest area in Europe, yet 40% of its timber is imported. At a time when Google’s London headquarters, designed in 2016 with a solid wood structure, has still not been delivered, and when the tallest wooden tower is due to be built in Tokyo in 2028, reaching a height of 100 metres, where does France stand in relation to wood? The RE2020, through the dynamic life cycle analysis, encourages the use of bio-sourced materials to promote the storage of biogenic carbon in buildings. The SNBC is explicitly banking on this sector to achieve its 2050 targets. However, the Paris Fire Brigade doctrine published in 2021 greatly complicates its use in architecture. How can these contradictions be overcome?
Soil
Although soil is used as a building material in many parts of the world, it has often been regarded as a waste product in France in recent decades, with little use being made of excavated soil. However, its thermal and hygrometric properties, its extremely low carbon footprint when used raw, its abundance and the natural variations in colour that it offers in every region make it a rich and inspiring material for today’s architects and designers. How can we adapt our building techniques to bring this material into line with contemporary requirements, and get rid of the vision of primitive housing that it still evokes for many people?
Metal
A symbol of the industrial revolution, the rise of metal in construction accompanied the renewal of Paris under Haussmann. Its origins in blast furnaces is associated with a high carbon footprint. Yet it is still widely used in facades, and seems promising for circular economy, as it is easy to dismantle. But is this enough of an advantage? As part of the City Metabolism Chair supported by the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres.
Stone
Discover the inaugural lecture of the “Alma Matter” series! In a world where the myth of abundance is collapsing, this series of lectures looks at what matter really has to offer. Actors, professions, economies, temporalities, geopolitics: how do contemporary issues of creation take shape through those of matter? Each talk focuses on a particular material, and brings together its stakeholders in a dialogue. The use of stone in construction declined during the twentieth century. Today, its return is acclaimed for its qualities: inertia, durability, low-emission processing, local presence… but what techniques and applications will be used in 2024? As part of the City Metabolism Chair supported by the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres.
32-34 Marbeuf — Interiors
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PCA-STREAM reinterprets Marbeuf, an emblematic Citroën garage from the 1930s, disfigured by successive transformations. The aim is to give it a new image and new uses by reinterpreting its original style, from its structure to the details of its fittings, translated by its interior design team.
PCA-STREAM Office
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PCA-STREAM takes its inspiration from its research on new workspaces, which are gathered in the second issue of the Stream book-magazine, “After Office,” in order to design its premises in the Marais, on the site of a former printing house. Designed as an ecosystem that brings together a variety of spaces for the use of a large multidisciplinary team, this place is the spatial embodiment of PCA-STREAM as well as a manifesto of its innovative vision of the work space.
8 Penthièvre — Interiors
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PCA-STREAM's interior design department completed the architectural restructuring of a 1960s-era office complex with a tailor-made layout of offices and common areas for the lessee, a major luxury brand. Comfortable and functional, the project develops a high-end image through the quality of the materials, which are handcrafted.
Sustainable Materialities in Construction
In France, the construction sector accounts for one third of the country’s CO2 emissions. Materials, which are partly responsible for this ratio, are extracted, transported, processed, poured or placed, dumped or incinerated… All these steps are opportunities to work on limiting impacts, involving architects, among other things, in deploying a new aesthetic.
Maximizing reuse, minimizing transformation
Maximum is a design studio that maximizes the value of waste; its material, its form and its engineering. Some materials are transformed in a semi-industrial process while others give birth to unique pieces, such as the glass walls of the Centre Pompidou caterpillar.
Cities, both a problem and a solution
Cities, like asphalt jungles, are dense inhabited spaces. Yet this density also helps limiting urban sprawl. Jeffrey Raven is a professor at the New York Institute of Technology and an architect specializing in resilient urban design. He advocates for the positive aspects of urbanization and seeks to resolve urban heat island effects by exploring the form, function, materiality and vegetation of the urban fabric.
Is plastic getting a facelift?
The star of the stage of the recently concluded Design Week in Paris, plastic seems to have moved beyond the disdain it had been experiencing lately. Thanks to recycling, its environmental footprint is now better controlled, which has turned into a real selling point. But beyond the material itself, it is an entire production logic that should be “recycled” to extricate ourselves from the dogma of newness and disposability.
Geoglasswork: territories of materials
Lucile Viaud is a designer and “geoglass” artist. Working from salvaged materials, she crafts objects that carry within them the history of the territories from where the materials originate. Its snail or abalone shells, forgotten sands, and powdered seaweed are slices of fleeting time and result in objects that cannot be replicated.
Training Citizen Architects to Serve a Community
Designing an inclusive city implies involving their residents in urban projects, but what is the role of architects and urban planners in this process? For Andrew Freear, the head of the Rural Studio program, they both have the ethical responsibility of getting locally involved via concrete projects. Architectural schools must thus take on training citizen architects by engaging them in learning by doing, and thus have them redevelop a deep connection with context and places, acting as neighbors and activists within communities in order to collectively carry out experimental projects that tangibly improve society and the environment.
Collaborating with situations
The two Lebanese artists and filmmakers were awarded the 2017 Marcel Duchamp Award for Unconformities, a project currently on display at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. This artwork, like their approach, is based on a methodology of investigation and excavation and aims to offer another reading of history and the traces of the past.
Design: Reparation
Nicolas Nova is a social anthropologist. Inspired by New Media Studies and design fiction, he contends that the future of design lies in recycling and reparation as well as reinventing forms and functions. Did you know that a used flip-flop could serve as a lighter?
From "Mediance" to Places
The geographer and orientalist Augustin Berque revisits the polysemic dimension of the term “milieu,” and explains the distinction made by mesology—“the area of biology that deals with the relationships between the environments and organisms”—between “environment” and “milieu.” The reality of things differs depending on the environment of each species or culture, the object doesn’t exist in itself but according to its relationship with the subject. In this way, mesology goes much further than the subject/object dualism of modern science. Ontologically “trajective,” the environment is neither objective nor subjective, but firmly between the two theoretical subject/object centers. Berque takes the term “mediance,” meaning the dynamic coupling of the individual and their surroundings, from the Japanese “fūdo,” to which he adds “trajection,” a process that results in the “mediance” of human existence in its concrete surroundings. Taken as a whole, all human environments, distinct from the biosphere through their eco-techno-symbolic dimension, form the ecumene. For architecture, this implies a respect for history and the environment, without mimicking ancient forms, creating from the “mediance” of each place.
An Attempt to Drain Places
Larissa Fassler is a “Neo-Situationist” artist. By exploring places over the course of many hours, she gleans their ephemeral essence, which she then superimposes on the fixed urban master plan. The subjective maps thus generated highlight both urban narratives and history.
Maximizing reuse, minimizing transformation
Maximum is a design studio that maximizes the value of waste; its material, its form and its engineering. Some materials are transformed in a semi-industrial process while others give birth to unique pieces, such as the glass walls of the Centre Pompidou caterpillar.
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stream voices
Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!
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