Louis Paillard   Paris

Aside from the fact that the architectural profession involves a great many administrative, technical, regulatory, financial, economic, legal and even judicial headaches, architecture nonetheless remains a formidable means of expression for anyone who seizes the opportunity.

Our motto : « No risk, no fun ! » Because, beyond a programmatic brief that is, in the end, very often mundane, architecture — since that is ultimately what it comes down to — usually ends up as little more than a fifth wheel. Our attitude is to look past this situation and concern ourselves only with architecture, because, as De Gaulle said, and later Jean Nouvel : « logistics will follow. » For us, this means analyzing every context surrounding the project — urban, economic, technical, material, sociological, even political — filtering them through a still, and drawing out a strong, clear spirit.

Every means is fair game : form, color, materials, scale, the interplay of programmatic and spatial interlocking, dislocation, a sense of detail, and a certain wry humor drawn from the visual arts and from literature.

(Original text of 2009, machine translated in 2026.)