Offbeat (June 2024)

Behind their handling of familiar programmes—schools, housing, gyms or multimedia libraries—is an approach driven by architects who do more than just interpret predefined specifications. At a time when all was concrete, archi5 was a step ahead, already promoting the possibilities of construction in wood and structural diversity. This office, with its verdant premises based in Montreuil, was also ahead of its time in designing a ‘landscape-architecture’. Again, ahead of its time, it extolled the merits of renovation. So, for this publication devoted to archi5, rather than a traditional monograph, the archi5 partners—Anne Pezzoni, Jacques Sebbag, Laurent Boudrillet and Bernard Guillien—preferred to open the space for a new approach. Opening the doors and giving the floor to guests and colleagues representing a wide range of approaches, but all with the common feature of having stepped away from the well worn tracks within their respective fields of expertise. Whether this entailed an ‘out-of-frame’ urban planning with architect and urban planner Claire Schorter (laq office); an ‘off-programme’ living heritage with the mayor of La Rochelle Jean-François Fountaine; a ‘nonstandard’ architecture achieved through renovation with Sébastien Eymard (Encore Heureux); ‘out-with-concrete’ regulation with Paul Jarquin, founder of REI Habitat, a property developer specialised in wood construction; ‘out-of-town’ landscape spaces with the landscape designer-urban planner Juliette Bailly-Maître (Mutabilis office); or ‘off-grid’ low energies with architect-engineer Raphaël Ménard (president of AREP). All the speakers have broken free from standards in order to design the outlines of cities where, above all else, the living is good. In short, the cities that archi5 is striving to build.

Cartes blanches : Antoine Espinasseau, Philippe Katerine, Carlo Rovelli, Marion Waller and Pierre Leguillon.

Graphic design — Anamorphée (Charlotte Halpern and Anouk Journé)