Territory& Use
In southern Alsace, one lives on three borders between France, Germany and Switzerland. It is the ecosystem from where the office DeA architects operates. It is located in the center of Mulhouse, a city its founder knows. Although not originally from there, Guillaume Delemazure experienced and analysed its characteristics and subtleties, as well as the complex relationships with the surrounding regions which have shaped its economy and culture. After a long collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron, he chose to found an office in this formerly grand industrial city, which benefits currently from an increased interaction with its swiss and german neighbours. The architectural approach of DeA is inspired by the work of the great office from Basel, which has become an real icon of its hometown. However, DeA intends to do more than promoting swiss excellence on the French side of the border. DeA understands the specific issues and limits of cross-border projects and considers the differences and possible misunderstandings between the three countries as opportunities to invent new schemes and create a meaningful architecture. Thus, the office has recently been given the chance to design and build several large-scale facilities frequented by french, german and swiss crowds.
Approach & Research
The KMØ has been an opportunity for DeA to implement its architectural philosophy, according to which a project is a above all a process. More than an end result, an architectural project is a repeated interaction between the client brief and successive propositions. The design brief is in this case not a finalized document, but a compilation of data and parameters, which may vary during the course of the project development. In order to address such issues, the interaction between design team and client as to be organized as a back and forth process, potentially challenging the initial requests of the client. Lucien Kroll called it “l’architecture incrementale” (incremental architecture), which translates into a design process reactive enough to adapt to the evolution of brief and constraints during the project development and the construction phase. KM0 is indeed a typical example of this way of designing and building.
Casing & Technique
Is there a common ground between a Biomedicine research centre in Strasbourg and the first buildings of the new business district of Mulhouse? Besides a common polychromic envelop, the two projects share a similar approach: an innovative design leading to efficient an high-quality solutions in spite of a limited and reasonable building costs. How can energetic efficiency be obtain without using technological gadgets and pompous certifications?