Paris-based Nem Architectes has renovated a villa in Grasse, France, transforming it into a bright pink tourist destination named Domaine de la Rose for beauty company Lancôme.

The villa contains lounge and meeting spaces that can host perfume-making workshops, events and exhibitions, designed as a place where visitors can learn about the Lancôme brand and perfumery. Nem Architectes also added a perfume distillery and warehouse underground.

Surrounded by floral gardens used to make perfume, Domaine de la Rose is located on the Lancôme estate in Grasse, which is known as the world's perfume capital.

"The purpose of this design is to create a functional, practical, and sustainable building that can be both beautiful, contemporary and exemplary while showcasing the brand's luxurious and exceptional heritage and artistry," Nem Architectes told Dezeen.

The studio removed all buildings on the estate except for Domaine de la Rose, which was painted striking pink and reroofed with locally-made pink glazed canal tiles.

The villa is comprised of a pair of two-storey wings connected by a single-storey lobby. The upper levels of both wings open onto the roof of the lobby below, creating a terrace with views of the surrounding hills.

A path cuts through the centre of the building. One side features a circular tunnel entrance to the lobby, while the other entrance is sheltered by the terrace above, propped up by a column that appears like a stack of rocks.

Nem Architectes described its overhaul of the villa as a monolith, with a vibrant pink interior and exterior that stands out against the lush green landscape.

"It is a bold and striking sight, and it gives a tangible and unique form to the Lancôme brand," said Nem Architectes.

"The estate can also be seen as a living and sensorial experience for the visitors and guests," it continued. "Their visual, olfactive and acoustic senses are stimulated throughout the house and the garden, as they would be when using a Lancôme perfume."

Nem Architectes chose to renovate the existing building rather than build a new one for sustainability reasons.

The studio added lavender and rice straw in timber frames to the exterior, which was closed off with rigid wood fibre insulation boards to improve insulation.

"It was decided early on that the building should be rehabilitated as opposed to completely levelled and replaced with a new one," said Nem Architectes.

"This decision is in compliance with Nem Architectes and Lancôme's concern for sustainability, as it saves resources and energy while paying homage to the local architectural heritage."

Nem Architectes was founded in 2008 by Lucie Niney and Thibault Marca.

Other pink buildings that have been featured on Dezeen include a cultural institution in Lima that was renovated to have pink walls and an apartment renovation in Mexico with arched openings.

The photography is by Cyrille Weiner unless stated.

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Prefabricated units of concrete and wood were given varied facades to "mitigate the feeling of repetition" at this student housing project in Agen, France, by Parisian studio Ignacio Prego Architectures.

Designed for the National School of the Penitentiary Administration (ENAP), the scheme provides 461 rooms set within a 15-hectare park, which the studio wanted the project to "harmonise" with rather than disrupt.

"This project was a challenge: building quality accommodation for one thousand residents at the heart of a limited site in under a year," explained the studio.

"This meant solving a tricky puzzle: designing architecture that is both standardised and welcoming," it continued.

Ignacio Prego Architectures looked to the concept of the garden city – where people live in small towns surrounded by greenbelts – in response, as a means of blending the relatively high-density accommodation programme with a "small-scale urban aspect" like that of a village.

Three blocks oriented north-south are separated by green "alleyways" through the site, bookended by a run of smaller blocks along the southern edge and by arcade-style concrete walkways to the north.

"The nine-metre wide alleyways – the size of a street – form a landscaped space enabling residents to circulate and stroll around, creating the residential aspect that we sought to establish," explained the studio.

"The role of these alleyways is also to introduce a scale factor, a smooth transition between the campus covering several hectares and the room measuring a few square meters," it added.

To prevent a feeling of repetition among the blocks, they are broken up by external staircases and have been given a variety of claddings, with pale brickwork facing out towards the park and corrugated metal panels overlooking the alleyways.

"We worked with coherent materials and colours to establish an identity in keeping with the local area," said Ignacio Prego Architectures.

"Around the plot, terracotta paving in light and warm local tones intrinsically harks back to the region's built landscape, [and] for the alleyways, metal cladding in powder-coated steel in the same hues brings light between the buildings," it continued.

Inside, the rooms were designed to feel "more reminiscent of a hotel than a residential property," with simple, pale-wood carpentry and prefabricated bathroom pods.

With the prefabricated structures manufactured in advance, once the foundations were in place the whole structure was able to be constructed in just 11 months.

Smaller-scale urbanism also served as a reference point for Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' low-carbon, crescent-shaped student housing blocks for the University of Cambridge, while HCMA aimed to embed "indigenous design principles" in its British Columbia student housing.

 The photography is by Luc Boegly.

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French architecture practice TVK has completed a neighbourhood in Paris made up of limestone buildings surrounding a garden and designed as a sustainable development that aims to increase biodiversity.

Located on a triangular site in Paris's 19th arrondissement, the project is "the capital's first zero-carbon district", according to TVK.

Named Îlot Fertile, which translates to "fertile island" in French, it contains apartments, a youth hostel, student residences, a hotel, offices, restaurants, shops and sports facilities.

The four buildings that make up the neighbourhood range in height from seven to nine storeys tall, each with ground-floor levels made from low-carbon concrete and designed to achieve large, unobstructed interior spaces.

The upper levels were made from load-bearing limestone sourced mainly from the local Ile-de-France region, aiming to reduce the carbon cost of transportation.

TVK claims the 35,200-square-metre development is the largest load-bearing stone building site since Georges-Eugène Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris in the mid-19th century.

"Each material is used in the right place and the right quantity," TVK founders Pierre Alain Trévelo and Antoine Viger Kohler told Dezeen.

"We chose to use mainly limestone from the Paris region – it's the same one used to build the Haussmann buildings."

Public spaces, including restaurants and shops, are located on the ground floors of the buildings and open onto the central garden.

Hotel accommodations and apartments are on the upper levels, and a raised outdoor level provides additional garden spaces with an orchard, vegetable patches, insect hotels and nest boxes.

Office spaces are located in a building that sits parallel to a railway line and, aiming to work with the site's existing topology and move as little earth as possible, TVK designed a sunken sports centre in a large hole on the site to create an interior with high ceilings.

"The biggest challenge of the project was to bring together more than a dozen programmes and turn them into a fully-fledged part of the city," said Trévelo and Kohler.

"The shape of each building is linked to the very specific geometry of the site shaped by the railway infrastructure," they continued. "This brings diversity to a building complex of this scale."

TVK designed Îlot Fertile to have a minimal carbon footprint in its construction and operation. It topped the buildings with photovoltaic panels and green roofs to produce energy while also aiming to increase biodiversity.

"Its proximity to public transport means that Îlot Fertile does not require any car parking, and we used a bioclimatic design to keep energy requirements to a minimum for heating, cooling and lighting," said Trévelo and Kohler.

"For the small amount of energy that will be consumed, the project plans to compensate for it by producing green energy via bio-solar roofs."

"Driven by the City of Paris' ambition for ecological transition, zero-carbon is a long-term objective for the life of the entire operation," added Trévelo and Kohler.

Elsewhere in Paris, Christ & Gantenbein completed a 124-metre-long steel-clad housing block, and RSHP unveiled its design for a "post-carbon" neighbourhood that will be located in the La Défense business district.

The photography is by Julien Hourcade.

Project credits:

Architect: TVK
Client: Linkcity
Landscape design: OLM
Building and civil engineering: Berim
Engineering: Carbone 4 and Amoes

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A series of red-concrete cylinders were used to update the layout, circulation and lighting of this house in Versaille, renovated by French studio Atelier Delalande Tabourin.

Dating back to the 1950s, the existing brick and concrete home previously had a compartmentalised interior that felt separated from its large garden, as well as an unused basement.

Atelier Delalande Tabourin reconfigured and unified these spaces by inserting a series of curved concrete volumes, which contain internal and external staircases as well as light wells for the basement and a fireplace in the living area.

"Breaking with the existing structure, the geometrically circular movement sequences different living experiences whilst also 'fluidifying' transitions," said Atelier Delalande Tabourin.

"[It is] a radical statement also aiming to restore importance and emotion to circulation areas, too often ignored or devoid of any particular physical sensation," it continued.

The concrete insertions were created using "grogs" – aggregates made from crushed bricks that are discarded during production. This led the studio to name the project House Rehabilitation with Bricks Shards.

Working in collaboration with designer and researcher Anna Saint-Pierre, the aggregates were sourced from brickworks close to the site, creating a colour palette that complements the existing brick structure.

"During a visit to the DeWulf brickworks, we were quickly intrigued by an immense pile of shards referred to as 'grogs', comprising all the unsold, deformed and overly fired bricks, which are then crushed on the industrial site," explained the studio.

"From that moment, it seemed obvious to us that we had to seize this deposit as the material basis for our project," it continued.

In the centre of the home, the largest of the cylinders contains a skylit spiral staircase, opening onto each of the home's three floors through large cutouts on its side.

Surrounding this central form are a living, kitchen and dining area on the ground floor and bedrooms and bathrooms above. It also extends into the now-usable basement.

Against the reddish-brown concrete, the rest of the home's interior has been kept minimal and white, with areas on the floor and walls left exposed to reveal where previous partition walls once stood.

Large folding doors in the living area open onto a raised garden patio and a side entrance is accessed via a concrete stair.

Other housing projects in France include the Maison Jericho extension in Marseille by Olivia Fauvelle Architecture and the all-glass Maison de Verre by Odile Decq.

The photography is by Maxime Delvaux.

Project credits:

Architect: Atelier Delalande Tabourin (ADT)
Project manager: François-Xavier Jamin
Materials reuse: Anna Saint Pierre
BET structure: Con-Struct

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Local studio REV Architecture has completed an interior renovation of the Maison de Beauté in Paris, France, for L'Oréal Luxe skincare brand Carita.

Surrounded by other luxury brands along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the studio aimed for the space, which houses a hair salon and skincare treatment rooms as well as a restaurant and eye studio, to be an embodiment of the brand's identity.

"Our aim was to convert a commercial space into a cultural space," REV Architecture said. "We wanted the Maison Carita to stand out as a new must-go-to destination in Paris, with all the legend that goes with it to reflect what these modern, timeless women were like."

Design efforts focused on the 2,000-square-metre building's former courtyard, which was restored to its original proportions by removing recent additions and raising the height of the glass roof.

"To transcend this heritage, it was necessary to identify the logic of the space," the studio explained. "The architecture becomes the singular experience that leads to the discovery of the brand's culture."

Natural light is filtered through what the studio describes as a series of "translucent clouds" – circular glass panels that overhang the length of the restored atrium.

To draw visitors in from the street, REV Architecture introduced a series of staggered arches along a portico leading from the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

"[The arches create] a subtly accelerated perspective that gradually reveals the vision of the atrium, the epicentre of the new Maison de Beauté," the studio said.

Public spaces and private rooms are alternated throughout the layout, and are connected through the central atrium by a raised path network.

"The different spaces of the Maison de Beauté are linked to the atrium by aerial paths, a unique architectural promenade [experienced] as a promise or souvenir of the visit," the studio said.

Materials were selected to reference the white-and-black colours of Carita's most iconic products, as well as to evoke their fluid textures and its brand identity.

"We have cultivated a sense of natural materiality [and] tactile surfaces where charm, contemporary purity and responsibility come together; the sensuality of gypsum, white and black marble warmed by touches of pink onyx and chromed metal," the studio said.

"Sensitive, natural, responsible [materials] made more beautiful by the passage of time."

The studio was further informed by the Carita brand logo and how it could be fused with the forms of the renovated rooms and treatment spaces.

"It is the lines and the femininity of this simple and poetic monogram that we have chosen to define the overall expression of the new architecture," REV Architecture said.

REV is a Paris-based architecture and design studio founded by Cristiano Benzoni and Sophie Thuillier. The project has been shortlisted in the health and wellbeing (interior) category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Other recent beauty and well-being projects include a beauty store which takes its cues from underground factories in China and a spa embedded in the Mexican jungle by Soler Orozco Arquitectos and Javier Sánchez.

The photography is by Benoit Linero.

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Gradated lava stone flooring and suspended planet-like orbs feature at the Cafe Nuances coffee shop in Paris, which was created by Dezeen Awards-nominated studio Uchronia.

Located on the city's Rue de la Tremoille, the coffee shop is the third Uchronia-designed branch for Parisian coffee roaster Cafe Nuances.

The one-room shop is fronted by a bright white facade in stark contrast to its vivid-hued interior.

Studio founder Julien Sebban was informed by the landscapes he experienced on a recent trip to Tunisia when creating the cafe's walls and lava stone flooring, which are decorated in ombre swathes of red, orange and blue.

"They reminded him of the sunsets in the Tunisian desert – a veritable ode to the gentleness of summer days," said the studio, known for its playfully eclectic designs and shortlisted in the emerging interior designer category at this year's upcoming Dezeen Awards.

The coffee shop's entrance is flanked by two bright red benches topped with metallic-effect fabric – one curved, and the other straight.

Low-slung interlocking tables, which can double as stools, can be reconfigured to suit customers' needs.

Uchronia placed a chunky stainless steel counter at the back of the intimate cafe, which is overlooked by deep orange lacquered shelving – a design element found in the other two Cafe Nuances outlets.

"This new address picks up on the codes present in the second shop, accentuating the [coffee] brand's colourful, futuristic retro universe," explained the studio.

A cluster of striking, spherical objects were finished in the same colours as the rest of the space and suspended from the reflective ceiling.

"Unlike [this branch's] two big sisters, whose interiors feature striated shapes, here, the poly mirror tiles are complemented by half-spheres in saturated colours, accentuating the dreamlike feel of the coffee shop," continued Uchronia.

"They create the illusion of floating balls, which could be mistaken for Saturn."

The studio previously livened up a Haussman-era Paris apartment for a pair of jewellery designers with furniture crafted to nod to the appearance of precious stones.

Elsewhere, Canadian design duo Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster created a sky-blue coffee shop in a century-old house in Buffalo, New York, with an optical illusion staircase.

The photography is by Félix Dol Maillot.

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French architecture studio Atelier 9.81 has designed a tower of staggered concrete blocks for a harbour master's office and lookout building on the Calais coastline.

Forming part of the Calais Port 2015 expansion plan, the 38-metre-tall tower comprises four stacked white-concrete boxes with decorative surfaces.

The blocks are designed by Atelier 9.81 to resemble balancing pebbles and visually separate the functions of spaces inside.

Situated at the junction between the existing port and its planned extension, the building is intended as a distinctive entry point to Calais that is visible from the sea, surrounding beaches and the nearby city.

"We have opted for a visual fragmentation of the program," Atelier 9.81 associate architect Cédric Michel told Dezeen.

"Like pebbles balanced on top of each other, this work is erected by accumulation, by stratification of stories contained in simple geometric shapes."

The harbour master's office is built in white concrete to withstand harsh coastal weather and cement the image of a cairn – a man-made pile of stones.

"From this idea of ​​the cairn, it seemed important to us to use only one material," explained Michel. "Also, with the extreme climatic conditions of the coast, the question of sustainability played a role in our choice."

The base of the building is a square four-storey volume that was cast in situ. It contains offices, meeting rooms, a control station for locks and movable bridges, and a roof terrace.

Prefabricated concrete was used to construct the rest of the tower, including the central structural core.

The middle two volumes in the tower act as a structural void, clad in the precast concrete panels.

These panels feature light bas-relief, including crossing lines and a sandblasted geometric pattern depicting the Strait of Dover, or the Pas de Calais in French, which is the narrow water passage separating England and France.

Concrete cladding stamped with circular patterns wraps the volume at the top of the building, which contains the facilities and equipment for monitoring and managing the port.

This two-level volume has breakout space and living quarters on the lower section, and a glazed lookout with an outdoor panoramic terrace on the upper level.

Other concrete buildings with boxy silhouettes featured on Dezeen include a power station control centre in Austria and an apartment block in Tokyo that staggers to create a series of terraces.

The photography is by Nicolas da Silva Lucas.

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Old and new blurred together in this exhibition at Paris' GSL Gallery, which celebrated contemporary creatives who observe design traditions of the past.

Le Salon de Septembre was the inaugural exhibition to be held at GSL Gallery, a factory-turned-arts space in Paris' Patin neighbourhood run by creative collective The Guild of Saint Luke.

Guided by the motto "Remastering The Past", the collective thought it fitting for the show to highlight the fact that traditional design techniques are "very much alive and well".

"These techniques are being adopted by young avant-garde artists and designers around the world to create new forms that can also be read in the context of decorative art history," the collective's founder, John Whelan, told Dezeen.

"This is a subjective opinion but I think that artworks and design pieces that reference the past are drawing upon our roots, the very foundation and life force of our culture – works that attempt to break free from the past can often look 'deracinated' and meaningless despite their valiant effort to create a new language."

A mix of established and emerging creatives contributed pieces to the exhibition, which was curated by Whelan and interior architect Edgar Jayet.

On the gallery's ground floor, an ebonised blackwood and stainless steel daybed by Australian designer Olivia Bossy sat beside a lustrous aluminium lamp from designer Max Copolov.

This drew on the work style of Weiner Werkstätte – a modernist Austrian design studio established in 1903 by painter Koloman Moser, the architect Josef Hoffmann and patron Fritz Waerndorfer.

A glass vitrine in the same room contained an ornate bento box from 19th-century Japan and a raw aluminium stool by co-curator Jayet.

This offered a reinterpretation of the curule seat, used in Ancient Rome by powerful magistrates.

Upstairs on the gallery's mezzanine, a chair by Seoul-based designer Kim Byungsub was on display.

While its seat was made from hairline-finish steel, its backrest featured najeonchilgi: a historic Korean handicraft technique in which mother-of-pearl motifs are inlaid into lacquered surfaces.

Other items on this level included a walnut-veneer lounger by London-based artist EJR Barnes, designed to emulate "turn-of-the-century European grandeur".

There was also a blackened ash, steel, and felt-laminate suspension light by London-based designer Joe Armitage, which took its cues from a floor lamp created in 1952 by his grandfather, architect Edward Armitage.

An array of paintings, prints and reliefs served as a backdrop to the pieces in the gallery. These nodded to the exhibition design of the 1903 edition of Salon d'Automne, an art show that takes place in Paris every year.

"My co-curator Edgar Jayet and I were particularly interested by the avant-garde spirit of the original Salon d'Automne, which was controversial in its day, showing the Fauvists, Cubists and Futurists, as well as Charlotte Perriand and Le Corbusier in design," explained Whelan.

"Archival images of the original exhibition in 1903 heavily influenced our scenography, with an ebonised oak vitrine and shelf above which artworks are hung in a ramshackle, fin-de-siecle style."

Like Salon d'Automne, Le Salon de Septembre will now become an annual event at GSL Gallery.

"We hope to provide an annual snapshot of the zeitgeist in art and design, showing artists and designers that explore heritage as a means of contemporary inspiration," concluded Whelan.

Prior to opening GSL Gallery at the beginning of 2023, The Guild of Saint Luke specialised in reviving historic interiors and designing new ones.

Previous projects include Nolinski, an art deco-style eatery in the French capital, and Maison Francois, a chic brasserie in London that riffs on Ricardo Bofill's architecture.

The photography is by Celia Spenard-Ko. 

Le Salon de Septembre took place at 27 Rue Jacques Cottin, Pantin, Paris, from 15 September to 6 October. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Copenhagen studio NORD Architects drew on research into the built environment's impact on people with dementia for the Alzheimer's Village in Dax, the first project of its kind in France.

Awarded via a competition in 2016, the studio's design references the urban layout of Dax's old town to create a sense of familiarity for its residents, with a communal "market square" wrapped by concrete arcades at its centre.

"When designing for people with dementia, where the loss of cognitive abilities is one of the main aspects of living with the condition, we design with the aim to help them in the best possible way," NORD Architects partner Morten Rask Gregersen told Dezeen.

"The design of the physical environment therefore relies on an idea of readability or recognition where simple design ideas and elements support the patient as their state and abilities change over time," he continued.

The Alzheimer's Village, which the studio said is "the first care home in France for people with dementia," is organised into four clusters.

Each of these houses around 30 residents and has its own dedicated facilities and courtyard.

To the north, the main square is surrounded by familiar functions, including a grocer, hairdresser and restaurant, which are intended to bring a sense of "recognisable day-to-day-life" to the village.

Modelled on the typology of a "bastide" – a type of fortified town that can be found nearby – concrete arches surround the village's main square, creating more shaded, private areas around the fountains and seating areas at its centre.

Throughout the village, timber plank cladding, plaster and pitched, clay-tiled roofs were also intended to evoke forms and textures that would be familiar to residents.

"The idea of creating an environment that the users can recognise led us to a contextual analysis of the nearby villages, where we experienced the arch motive is recurring motive in the old town squares in a typology called a 'bastide'," Gregersen said.

"The choice of materials can underline the idea of the recognisable environment, so we again looked at the local materials that the future residents would be used to in their own homes," he added.

Establishing a closeness to nature was also key to NORD Architects' design, with a small lake and trees in the middle of the site surrounded by a looping path and gardens with fragrant flowers to have a "stimulating effect".

The Alzheimer's Village in Dax was recently shortlisted in the health and wellbeing project category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Previous healthcare projects by NORD Architects include a hospice for palliative care in Copenhagen, which features golden facades and curved cutouts that create quiet courtyards.

The photography is by 11h45.

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Architecture studio Tolila+Gilliland used a palette of tactile materials to "engage the senses" at the Gilbert Raby Therapeutic Workshops in France.

Located on the Gilbert Raby hospital campus in Meulan-en-Yvelines, the building was created to provide day care and creative workshop spaces for patients recovering from addiction.

Basing the building's design on the central notion of care and wellness, Paris-based Tolila+Gilliland focused on creating bright and open spaces with raw materials such as exposed raw-earth brick and plaster.

Dug into a sloping site, the building sits on a reinforced concrete base, and was constructed using compressed earth bricks and earthen plaster with a timber-frame roof.

Throughout the interiors these materials were left exposed, and externally the building was covered in wooden shingles, creating an "invitation to touch", that runs counter to the traditional expectations of hospital architecture.

In order to give its users a feeling of agency, these spaces are also modular to allow for adaptations to be made over time.

"We are interested in the notion that architecture can support care through environments which encourage interdependence," founder Nicholas Gilliland told Dezeen.

"The invitation to touch is central to an appropriation of the space: raw earth brick and raw earth plasters are both solid and soft to the touch, their imperfections a feature rather than a weakness."

The workshops were organised around a central five-metre-wide "bioclimatic street", illuminated by large skylights in the roof above.

On either side of this central street, the ground floor contains individual therapy rooms, a kitchen and pharmacy, while the first floor houses the workshop spaces and a laundry.

A double-height space to the south features a small stepped seating area for gatherings, shaded from the sun by large metal louvres on the exterior.

"Rather than defining a fixed function to the street, it is conceived as an appropriable space for both patients and caregivers," Gilliland told Dezeen.

"[It can] serve as an impromptu amphitheater, serving for group announcements, presentations and performances tied to the activities within the ateliers."

"The upper-level corridors wrap this space on either side to create a horseshoe configuration with views below," he added.

The Gilbert Raby Therapeutic Workshops has recently been longlisted in the health and wellbeing project category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Tolila and Gilliland was founded in 2011 by Gilliland and Gaston Tolila, based in a former warehouse in Paris that the studio renovated for itself.

The photography is by Cyrille Weiner.

Project credits:

Design team:
Architect: Tolila+Gilliland
Environmental engineering: 180 degrés Ingénierie
Structure and systems: Mizrahi SAS
Wood structure engineering: Sylva Conseil
Landscape: Troisième Paysage

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Saturated greens and blues contrast pale pink sheets and playful flower details at Hôtel de la Boétie in Paris, which Swedish designer Beata Heuman created to be "a bit like a stage set".

Set in a 19th-century building, the 40-room hotel in Paris' 8th arrondissement was designed with Heuman's signature colourful interior style.

While it was a renovation of an existing hotel, the designer was able to make large changes to the interior as the building had been altered numerous times since it was completed.

"The building didn't have any original features left and has been re-configured over the years," Heuman told Dezeen. "We spun off the simplicity of the bones that were there, working with strong, simple ideas."

Guests are met by a reception room with a vibrant, bright-red nook for the front-of-house staff and two lamps designed like winding red-and-yellow flowers. A dark-blue leather seat complements the room.

Next to the reception area, Heuman created an all-silver lounge that was designed to have a theatrical feel and is brightened by an orange velvet sofa and a forest-green coffee table.

The colour palette was very deliberately chosen by Heuman, who thought about the wider impact it would have on the space.

"It's about contrast and balance," the designer said. "When you work with rich colours my instinct is to off-set that using simpler materials around it to complement and enhance."

The bedrooms have a saturated colour scheme, with lower-level floors that feature dark blue walls, which change to shades of brown on the ascending floors.

The two top levels have pale, airy blue hues, with classic French cast-iron balconies providing views of central Paris from the top floor.

A grassy green carpet was used throughout the hotel to create a vibrant contrast to the blue and brown hues.

Some bedrooms have been decorated with oversized headboards that were woven as rugs and then upholstered, creating an unusual and eye-catching centrepiece.

These were informed by the inlaid marble floor of the Medici Chapel in Florence and sit above the solid-ash beds, which have been made with pale-pink satin sheets that add to the vibrant feel of the room.

In the bathrooms, Heuman used pale blue and green pastel hues juxtaposed with pink towels to give the rooms a luxurious retro feel, while checkerboard-patterned tiles in yellow and green add a fun touch.

The designer also used her own products to decorate the hotel, including her Dodo Egg Light – an egg-shaped light with green fittings designed to resemble planet leaves.

This decorates one of the ground floor lounge areas, which also features posters for art exhibitions by artists Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee.

The designer used mainly natural materials for the hotel, including wood and brass.

"The solid ash furniture used in all the rooms have a humble quality which anchors the more theatrical elements of the schemes such as the headboards, ensuring the expression stays true to the nature of the building," she said.

Heuman also created the branding for the hotel, which was made for French hotel group Touriste.

"A hotel is about having an experience for a day or two, which means that we have been able to explore a concept and a mood to a greater extent," Heuman said.

"We can treat it a bit like a stage set, which is not the approach I would take when it comes to someone's home."

The project fulfilled a long-time dream for the designer, who had previously never designed a hotel and works more on private home interiors.

"I’ve been wanting to do a hotel for ages and it has been a fantastic experience," Heuman said.  "I am drawn to the theatrical, although that is often not appropriate for a residential setting."

"A hotel is an experience for a few nights, therefore you can exaggerate and do more of a 'look'," she added. "In a residential project the design is centred around the personal preferences of an individual client."

Previous hotels by Touriste include Hotel Les Deux Gares in Paris, which has an interior that was created by British designer Luke Edward Hall. Also in Paris, local studio Uchronia created a colourful Haussmann-era apartment as a "chromatic jewellery box".

The photography is by Simon Brown.

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A series of playful concrete arches overlook a public square at the base of these office and social housing blocks in Pau, France, which have been designed by architecture studio CoBe with design agency WEEK.

Called Pôle Laherrère, the project forms part of the wider urban renewal of Pau's Saragossa district, an area that is defined by large blocks of social housing built in the 1960s.

Replacing a disused hospice that was demolished, the new buildings provide social and student housing, offices, restaurants and a police station, organised around an existing square popular for its weekly markets.

"In a dynamic of resilience, the Saragosse district is reinventing itself around a new centrality: Laherrère Square, an urban piece already realized when we started working on the project," CoBe Architecture & Paysage told Dezeen.

"The two buildings of the project were located around this major public space, in the heart of a housing estate landscape," it continued.

To animate the square below, the Pôle Laherrère blocks were split horizontally, contrasting exposed concrete bases punctured by fully-glazed arches with timber-clad upper storeys finished with awnings.

"We pay close attention to the life of the ground floors, supporting the idea that the base of the city must be intense, and encourage uses and meetings," the studio said.

"This is why we worked on a very transparent base, which gives to read the rich programming of the ground floors."

"The arches are inspired by the classical language reminiscent of the squares Reine-Marguerite or Gramont in Pau – these thick arches give order and stability to the square and create a high-quality inside/outside relationship," CoBe added.

The eastern block contains housing above a multipurpose room, cooking school and police station, while the western block contains offices for companies that focus on integration through employment.

Inside, the different uses of the buildings are united by a similar material palette, with white walls, wooden ceilings and shelving and accents in yellow for elements such as splashbacks and awnings.

"We wanted to see a common and readable expression for very different programs that take place on all floors of the buildings: bright and white spaces, highlighting natural materials such as wood," the studio said.

"As a social residence project for students and low revenue families (especially single mothers) it was also important to create apartments that give a feeling of confidence using a warm colour scheme and natural, quality materials," it added.

Pôle Laherrère was recently longlisted in the mixed-use project category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Other mixed-use social housing schemes recently completed in France include a timber and hempcrete building in Paris by Barrault Pressacco, which was modelled on one of the city's typical apartment blocks.

The photography is by Luc Boegly.

Project credits:

Main architect: CoBe Architecture & Paysage
Partner architect: WEEK
Main engineer: AIA
Acoustic engineer: Gamba

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Architecture studio Christ & Gantenbein has created a 124-metre-long block of social housing in Paris that is clad in steel.

Designed in collaboration with Margot-Duclot Architectes Associes, the linear building is in the city's 15th arrondissement and contains 104 apartments split across five floors.

It sits above a subway maintenance workshop and is constructed from a concrete frame with large timber infills to reduce the building's weight.

"The building's facade is a light construction with prefabricated wooden elements," Christ & Gantenbein told Dezeen.

"The choice of wood follows a twofold strategy: it lightens the construction and reduces the costs of superimposed structures while improving the building's ecological footprint."

Its structure was enclosed within a steel facade, chosen to relate to the industrial setting of the building above the workshop, while giving it an unexpected appearance.

"A steel facade is rather unexpected for a housing building, and we appreciate the opportunity to challenge typical material uses," explained Christ & Gantenbein.

"Here, the steel relates to a certain infrastructural context to which the building is clearly linked through its hybrid programme," it continued. "But it also adds shine, reflection and lightness to the volume. And, of course, it also references the city's traditional roof cover elements."

Christ & Gantenbein aimed to break up the mass of the 124-metre-long block by creating a series of setbacks topped with balconies to animate the facade.

"The building's elongated form is articulated by regularly carving out the volume, a morphological feature referred to as redents," said Christ & Gantenbein.

"This architectural feature is often found in Paris and facilitates ventilation as well as diverse views amidst the city's dense fabric," it continued.

"Furthermore, these protrusions create small courtyards along the facade and thus help to break the scale of the volume."

The project is the studio's first in Paris and it hopes that it will demonstrate that high-quality social housing is achievable in the city.

"We aim to offer the highest quality of housing within dense spatial and economic constraints," said the studio.

"Although the apartments are compact, they exude a sense of generosity, thanks to their double-aspect design or multiple views," it continued.

Christ & Gantenbein added that value is added to the project through the incorporation of loggias.

"We've also added value by designing the loggias as unheated spaces that help regulate the building's temperature," it explained.

"Since these spaces are not included in the total square footage per apartment, they serve as a bonus for the residents. Additionally, the large common urban gardening rooftop has been a welcomed feature."

Architecture studio Christ & Gantenbein was founded by Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein in 1998. Previous projects designed by the studio include a museum for chocolate brand Lindt, a concrete bridge over a Swiss river and a multifunctional workspace in Germany.

The photography is by Walter Mair unless stated.

Project credits:

Architect: Christ & Gantenbein
Team: Emanuel Christ, Christoph Gantenbein, Cloé Gattigo, Jean Wagner, Arthur Clauss, Thibaut Dancoisne, Nicolò Ornaghi, Bérénice Curt, Agnete Astrup, Mathilde Berner
Collaborator: Margot-Duclot Architectes
Consultants: SETEC Batiment, INEX, AVLS, BMF

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L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped, artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude's last work, is being recycled by Parley for the Oceans, which will turn it into tents and sun shades for use during the 2024 Olympics and other events in Paris.

In 2021, L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped saw the monument on Paris's Champs-Élysées shrouded in 25,000 square metres of silvery fabric tied in place with 7,000 metres of red rope.

Both fabric and rope were made of woven polypropylene, a type of thermoplastic, and intended to be recycled — a vision that is now being realised by the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation in collaboration with environmental organisation Parley for the Oceans.

The organisation has already processed the materials and is now in the design and production phase.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has confirmed the tents and shade structures created will be used in major events including the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which the city is hosting next year.

"A constant commitment of Christo and Jeanne-Claude was to reuse, upcycle and recycle all materials used in their projects," said L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped project director Vladimir Yavachev.

"I can think of nothing more fitting than recycling this artwork for future use in Paris, a city so influential on the lives and work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude," he added.

Parley for the Oceans founder and CEO Cyrill Gutsch said it was meaningful to be giving a second life to an installation that he had seen as "a flag of rebellion" and "an encouragement that seemingly impossible ideas can become a reality".

"The ropes, the fabric of the artwork are testament of the true superpower we humans possess: imagination," said Gutsch.

"We will create tent structures that are designed to protect human life against dangerous heat waves," he added. "And to supercharge our hearts and our minds for the epic challenge ahead of us."

"I know it for sure, together we can create a new economy where harmful, toxic and exploitative business practices are a relic of the past."

The wood and steel from the substructure of L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped have already been reused by the organisation Les Charpentiers de Paris and the companies ArcelorMittal and Derichebourg Environnement.

It is two years since the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation unveiled L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped, a posthumous work for both artists.

Christo passed away in 2020 and Jeanne-Claude in 2009, but the pair had conceptualised the project together in 1961. The artists and their foundation consider all of their public projects and indoor installations as collaborative works by both Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped had been scheduled to go ahead in 2020, but was postponed to 2021 after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

After Christo's death, the project was finalised by his team along with the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Centre Pompidou and the City of Paris.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are most well-known for "wrapping" famous buildings and landscapes in their massive-scale artworks.

While some critics have attacked the waste or environmental interference of their projects, the artists' foundation maintains that they recycled most materials and left sites in the state they found them in, or better.

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Sculptures crafted from recycled BMW airbags and oak railway sleepers feature in artist Frederik Molenschot's Atlas 2000 exhibition, which is on display at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris.

Marking the Dutch artist's first solo exhibition, Atlas 2000 features hand-sculpted works that are directly influenced by natural landscapes, Molenschot said.

The show's title refers to the visual diary the artist has created since his studies at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2000.

Spread across the minimalist ground floor at the Paris branch of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, the sculptures were crafted from various materials and range from functional to abstract.

Buoy Airbag is an amorphous, pale blue-hued hanging sculpture created from recycled airbags sourced from BMW vehicles.

"The piece delves into the intricate connection between cargo transport and climate change, with recycled airbags symbolising a melting arctic ice rock floating in the sea," the artist told Dezeen.

"I want to explore how luxury materials are used and how they become what they are," he added. "[So] I processed the used airbags in a 'couture' way, to get a very high-quality finish."

Molenschot also designed Gingerblimp, a bulbous bronze LED light sculpture characterised by a silver patina and a gold-brushed interior.

The artist explained that the sculpture is a playful take on ginger root from the natural world and also nods to the manmade blimps that form part of New York City's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Recycled oak railway sleepers were salvaged to create a chunky dining table and chair, which were named Bridge Beat to "pay homage to the captivating structure of bridges".

Also part of this series is a black bronze desk and chairs formed from gridded lines arranged in triangular formations.

"Each material was selected purposefully, offering unique properties and textures that complement the conceptual aspects of the artworks," explained Molenschot.

"Every piece is hand-sculpted in our studio."

According to Molenschot, the pieces' forms vary as much as their material palettes. In one corner of the gallery, a bobbly bronze glove was positioned underneath a branch-shaped textured lamp while oversized clothing also features in the exhibition.

"This solo show holds a special place in my heart, as it represents my entire artistic journey since my time at the Academy," reflected Molenschot.

"It's an invitation to explore my vision of our world. My 'atlas' is a compendium of research, pictures, designs, and sketches that have shaped me as an artist."

Known for his large-scale bronze sculptures, Molenschot has been represented by Carpenters Workshop Gallery since 2008. The galley, which also has locations in London and the US, previously exhibited an all-denim furniture show by designer Harry Nuriev.

The late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld also debuted his first sculpture exhibition at the Paris branch.

Atlas 2000 is on display at Carpenters Workshop Gallery from 1 June to 16 September 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Promotion: from 3D-printed cutlery to beach toys made from recycled fish scales, more than 60 pieces of craft will be on show as part of the Taiwan Pavilion at this year's Maison&Objet furniture fair in Paris.

Taking over the Signature gallery at the Paris-Nord Villepinte exhibition centre, the installation will spotlight the work of Taiwanese artisans and brands under the theme "Evolving Life".

Led by the National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute (NTCRI), the pavilion will explore "the progressive journey of Taiwanese craftsmanship over the years and the unwavering optimism that propels our lives forward".

The Taiwanese Pavilion will be divided into three sections – conceptual crafts, brand crafts and fashion crafts.

In the first section, NTCRI will showcase nearly 30 experimental creations the institute has supported through its various programmes in recent years.

Among them are furnishings crafted using local Taiwanese wood and digital manufacturing techniques, beach toys made from recycled fish scales and elaborate 3D-printed cutlery with contrasting stone handles.

"These ingenious creations serve as a testament to the collaborative efforts of NTCRI, industry partners and academia, who have collectively pushed the boundaries of materials, technology, style and aesthetics," the collaborators said.

"Through these endeavours, they continuously breathe new life into Taiwan's rich craftsmanship tradition."

The brand crafts category highlights 29 works from 10 emerging and established Taiwanese companies, including furniture maker Tomood, design brand NakNak and Yuhsien Design Studio.

Fashion craft is also on the agenda with an entire section dedicated to a collaboration with Taipei Fashion Week that brought together three pairs of artisans and fashion designers.

The project saw lacquer artist Wang Ching Shuang paired with ethical luxury brand C Jean, temple painter Chung Wu Nan with streetwear designer Justin Chou and shadow puppet master Zhang Fu-guo with textile designer Tang Tsung Chien.

"These collaborative efforts seamlessly translate traditional lacquer decoration, temple painting and shadow play into contemporary clothing, exuding an essence of tradition and charm," NTCRI said.

The Taiwan Pavilion was curated in collaboration with French design consultant Francois Leblanc Di Cicillia and supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture.

It will be on show in the Signature gallery of Hall 7 in the Paris-Nord Villepinte exhibition centre as part of Maison&Objet 2023 from 7 to 11 September.

For more information, visit the Maison&Objet website.

Maison&Objet 2023 takes place from 7 to 11 September at Paris-Nord Villepinte Parc des Expositions, France. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for NTCRI as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Multifaceted furniture pieces crafted to mirror the appearance of precious stones feature in this opulent Parisian apartment, which was renovated by local studio Uchronia for a pair of jewellery designers.

Located on Paris's Avenue Montaigne, the one-storey apartment is housed within a building designed as part of Georges-Eugène Haussmann's famed reconstruction of the French capital during the mid-19th century.

Uchronia maintained the apartment's original boiserie, mouldings, parquet flooring and tall ceilings, which are hallmarks of Haussmann-era architecture.

This quintessentially Parisian backdrop was updated to include bright and textured furnishings designed to mimic pieces of jewellery.

"The space had great bones – a classical Haussmanian layout," said Uchronia founder and architect Julien Sebban. "That being said, it felt cold, pretentious and beige."

"For a change, we avoided structural work and focussed on the decoration," he told Dezeen.

Created as a home for two jewellery designers, the apartment features an amorphous resin table in the dining room that is divided into seven modular parts and patterned with a motif informed by the green gemstone malachite.

"The table's custom-designed, beaten steel legs echo the principle of claws holding a solitaire diamond to its ring," explained Sebban.

Multicoloured light refracts from a squat stained-glass chair in the sizeable living room, which features a trapezoid lacquered cabinet and curvy jewel-like furniture finished in vivid hues and contrasting textures.

Uchronia suspended a milky blue Murano glass chandelier overhead and wrapped the room's floor-to-ceiling windows in sheer ombre curtains.

"The walls echo the curtains and are also treated – and this is a technical feat – in gradations of colour," the architect said.

Tucked into an alcove, towering silvery shelves display a selection of ornaments and were designed to give the impression of an open jewellery box.

"If the apartment's shapes are reminiscent of the jewellery world, its materials and colours are also borrowed from it," Sebban said.

In the single bedroom, the studio took cues from the undulating striations of onyx when creating a bespoke bed frame, finished in plush upholstery to blend in with the room's patterned carpet while alabaster lamps were positioned atop its two posts.

Elsewhere in the room, Uchronia paired a dramatically carved Ettore Sottsass dressing table in book-matched marquetry with an egg-shaped chair defined by gleaming red plastic and "space-age lines".

"It's very hard to pick a favourite place in this flat because each space has its own identity and colour," Sebban said. "But if there's one thing I really love about this apartment, it's the vitrail that leads to the kitchen."

The curving window was an existing feature of the apartment, which the studio customised with candy-coloured glass panes.

"It creates a place of passage that is quite timeless, like a little sanctuary," said the architect.

Coloured glass is a motif that appears throughout the apartment, including the asymmetrical pastel-hued wine and cocktail glasses that look like precious stones.

"Playful and contradicting combinations of colour, organic and geometric lines and a rich combination of textiles and glass come together to form a chromatic jewellery box filled with gems," said Sebban. "Every detail has been thought out, polished and cut."

Elsewhere in Paris, French architect Sophie Dries previously renovated a Haussmann-era apartment for clients who are "really into colour", while Hauvette & Madani added a sumptuous wine-red kitchen to a dwelling in the city's République area.

The photography is by Félix Dol Maillot. 

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Belgian designer Ramy Fischler has collaborated with Moët Hennessy and cocktail creator Franck Audoux to create the Cravan cocktail bar in the heart of Paris' Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Named Cravan, the bar for luxury drinks group Moët Hennessy was a collaboration between architect Fischler and restaurateur, author, historian and cocktail aficionado Audoux.

"The objective of the design was to amplify a story by Franck Audoux originating from his small bar in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and transforming it into a cocktail house over five levels in the centre of the capital – to imagine the creation of a new house of the Moët Hennessy group," Fischler told Dezeen.

"This is not a one-shot but the beginning of a long adventure. It was therefore necessary to define a harmony, a coherence, between all the ingredients of the project, whether it is the decoration, the service, the music or the lighting."

The space takes its name from the avant-garde poet-boxer and sometime art critic, Arthur Cravan, a free-spirited figure greatly admired by Audoux, with whom Fischler worked closely on this project.

"We share a common vision, based essentially on cultural references from literature and cinema, and above all a taste for scenic impact, framing a context, point of view, or narrative," said Fischler.

"We started with the desire to freely assemble codes, eras, and styles to craft a new repertoire which made sense to us and expressed the essence of Cravan."

Set in a 17th-century building in the heart of this historic and literary district, the space was arranged over five floors, with a small invitation-only space on the roof.

The building has separate bars, each with its own distinct character on the ground, first and third floors, while the second floor hosts the Rizzoli bookstore-cum-library, where guests can come with their drinks to leaf through and buy books. On the fourth floor, there's another invitation-only atelier-style space.

According to Fischler, the whole project took its cues from the concept of the cocktail.

"I would never have imagined this project in its current state if it were not a question of drinking cocktails" he said.

"There are a number of ingredients that we blend together to create a unique whole, that seems offbeat but is actually very controlled," he continued.

"I thought of the spaces as cinematic scenes, hence the individual atmospheres on each floor which form different sets. You can sit in front of the stage, on the stage, or behind the stage, depending on the experience and viewing angle you prefer."

To create these different scenes, the project makes use of a wide range of materials, often reclaimed salvaged pieces including parquet floors, stone floors and wood wall coverings, painstakingly installed by a large team of craftspeople.

In Ramy Fischler's projects, the textiles always play an important role and the practice features its own in-house textile designer.

"For Cravan, we tried to use as much re-used material as possible, and in particular textiles from Nona Source, a start-up that makes available leftover, unused fabrics from the fashion houses of the LVMH group."

The practice strived to create a contrast between the warm and natural colours of the historic fittings, and the colder and metallic colours of the contemporary furniture and fittings, "which cohabit one alongside the other".

"Depending on the level, the colour palette is totally different, and since no room is alike, and each colour has been chosen according to the universe we have sought to compose," said Fischler.

All of Cravan's furniture was custom designed and Fischler's holistic approach extends to the cocktail glasses, which the practice designed for Cravan and which are displayed in the library.

"Rather than creating new shapes, we preferred to select, from the history of glassware over the past 300 years, the models that we liked and that we wanted customers to rediscover," explained Fischler.

Other recent bars featured on Dezeen include an eclectic cocktail in Los Angeles designed by Kelly Wearstler to feel "like it has been there for ages" and the Ca' Select bar and distillery in Venice.

The photography is by Vincent Leroux and Alice Fenwick

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An oversized roof and wooden structure define this pavilion by Chilean studio DRAA, which aims to bring "a piece of Patagonian shade" to Le Festival des Cabanes in France.

Aptly named Patagonian Shadow Cabin, the pavilion is designed by DRAA architects Nicolas del Rio and Felipe Camus to offer individuals a shaded space to enjoy views of a nearby lake.

According to the duo, the structure takes cues from buildings in the region of Patagonia in South America – specifically those with "simple, seemingly useless roof structures".

Instead of covering the top of a building and protecting it against the weather, these roof structures are used to provide shade and serve as signposts or indicate property.

"Apparently useless or at best over-designed single roof structures become milestones, indicate ownership or road signs," said DRAA.

"Many times, they cover nothing, they just provide shade," it continued. "While directing the view towards the alpine landscapes, our wish is to offer a piece of Patagonian shade."

Patagonian Shadow Cabin was designed for Le Festival des Cabanes, an annual event in Annecy also known as The Cabin Festival, which presents a series of competition-winning wooden pavilions.

It comprises a wooden structure sheltered by an oversized red-vinyl roof and is designed to be occupied by one person at a time.

Patagonian Shadow Cabin's structure is formed of a pod-like shelter that rests on an off-centre pillar, which is supported by buttresses.

DRAA said this design is intended to create the illusion that the pavilion is "resting" on the landscape and avoids the need for four support columns.

The use of wood for the structure is also a reference to buildings in Patagonia, such as those developed by European settlers who travelled there in the 19th century.

"North Patagonia was developed mainly by German settlers at the end of the 19th century, who found nothing but timber to build their structures in central European style," DRAA told Dezeen.

"In the nearby island of Chiloe, they found skilled carpenters who had been building their particular ships and Jesuit churches entirely out of wood, with elaborate timber joinery," added the studio.

"Both groups benefited from their previous backgrounds and came to be a school of carpentry that built many structures in this fashion."

Approximately 13 cabins are displayed at Le Festival des Cabanes each year, after being selected through a competition process.

The contest is open to qualified architects and aims to explore the relationship between architecture and nature. Each winning structure is made from wood found in the surrounding forests.

DRAA is an architectural studio founded by del Rio in 2012 in Santiago, Chile. Its other recent projects include an A-frame house designed for a Chilean ski resort and a charred timber cabin in Chile that is raised over a mountainous hillside.

Other pavilions recently featured on Dezeen include the 12-metre-high Wedding Cake by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos and another made from mycelium at Glastonbury festival 2023 by set designer Simon Carroll.

The photography is by Felipe Camus.

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Following the wildfires that ravaged Brittany's Arrée mountains last summer, Ronan Bouroullec has reimagined the interior of the region's historic Chapelle Saint-Michel de Brasparts as part of a full restoration.

Originally built at the end of the 17th century, the chapel is a modest building without lighting or electricity, perched on top of a prominent hill that rises above the surrounding moorland.

Breton businessman François Pinault, founder of luxury group Kering, financed the chapel's restoration after it was damaged during the wildfires, patching up its metre-thick stone walls, rammed-earth floors and the exposed oak frame supporting the slate roof.

Bouroullec, who was born and raised in Brittany, remembers the chapel from his childhood and was compelled to design a new altar and several furnishings for the building as part of the refurbishment.

Working in collaboration with local artisans, he used a trinity of roughly-hewn materials – granite, steel and glass – that would stand the test of time while reflecting the building's rugged rural location.

"Heavy enough not to be moved, sturdy enough not to be damaged, rough enough not to require cleaning, the elements that Ronan Bouroullec has placed in the chapel must succeed, despite or because of these characteristics, in creating a sensory experience," wrote Martin Bethenod, former CEO of Pinault's Bourse de Commerce museum, in an introductory text for the project.

"The bush-hammered granite, blurred glass, hammered steel, the choice of a galvanized finish to soften the contrast of the cross and candlesticks with the whiteness of the lime-rendered walls – each intervention combines sensations of roughness and softness, of force and tremor."

Nuit celtique de Huelgoat granite – quarried less than 15 kilometres away from the chapel – was cut into three pieces before being worked by local stone mason Christophe Chini to create an altarpiece, its horizontal base and a console table for candles and offerings.

Bethenod compares the dark stone, studded with shards of white, to "the starry night sky over the chapel, virtually devoid of light pollution".

The metal elements – a simple cross and a group of three tall candle holders, all in hammered steel – were the result of another collaboration, this time between Bouroullec and Roscoff-based metalworker Mathieu Cabioch.

Some of the candles stand directly on the altar while the rest are integrated into the Brutalist console table, which consists of a long slab of granite, seemingly supported by several of the steel candle holders.

The final element in Bouroullec's material trinity is glass, in the form of a large mirrored disc that hangs centrally behind the altar.

Made by glassmakers from the Venice area, with whom Bouroullec has worked for several years, the piece was designed to create a dialogue with the two stained-glass windows in the apse, which are the chapel's only surviving decorative element.

"More than a mirror, more than an object, it is a light source without physical substance, as if a round hole had been made in the wall to reveal daylight, unpredictable and constantly changing," said Bethenod.

Brittany is home to some of the world's oldest standing architecture. Other projects making use of the region's historic buildings include this conversion of a 17th-century barn into a printmaker's studio.

The first new church to be built in Brittany in the 21st century was completed by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira in 2018, featuring a sculptural composition of intersecting concrete forms.

The photography is by Claire Lavabre courtesy of Studio Bouroullec.

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French interior designer Dorothée Meilichzon has renovated a Belle Epoque-era hotel in Biarritz, France, blending maritime and art deco motifs to add contemporary flair to the historic building.

The Regina Experimental sits on a clifftop overlooking the Bay of Biscay in the French seaside city, which was once a royal getaway and is now a popular surfing destination.

Constructed in 1907 by architect and landscape designer Henry Martinet, the grand building features a 15-metre-high atrium, large bay windows, a glass roof, and hints of art deco throughout.

The majority of its spaces were well preserved, so Meilichzon's input involved modernising the furnishings and decor – adding colour and pattern to enliven the spaces while playing on the hotel's coastal location.

In the light-filled atrium, dark red and green sofas were arranged to create intimate seating areas within the expansive room.

Totemic wicker sculptures form a line down the centre of the room, and cylindrical paper lanterns by designers Ingo Maurer and Anthony Dickens hang from the columns on either side.

Guests in this space are served cocktails from a bar top shaped like an ocean liner, designed as an homage to modernist architect Eileen Gray, while listening to live piano music.

While the bar top nods to Gray's designs, the sofas in the room play on the shapes of the Itsasoan footbridge in nearby Guétary.

Carpet patterns vary between the different areas of the hotel – in the corridors, they carry a nautical motif, while the markings are reminiscent of fish scales in the guest rooms.

The hotel's restaurant, Frenchie, offers Basque-inspired cuisine within a bright room that features more nautical references, such as rope-hung shelves and shell-shaped sconces.

Highly patterned tiled floors and furniture contrast the restaurant's neutral plaster walls and ceiling, which are punctuated by arched niches and curved plywood panels.

The dining area spills onto an outdoor terrace, populated by red cafe tables and chairs lined up against pale blue banquettes, around the corner from a swimming pool.

The hotel's 72 guest rooms are accessible from corridors that wrap around the atrium, and face either the ocean or the Golf de Biarritz Le Phare golf course.

Shades of blue and green dominate the art deco-influenced bedrooms, which feature glossy geometric headboards and marine-striped upholstery.

Small lamps extend from rope frames that wrap around the mirrors, and red accents on smaller furniture pieces pop against the cooler hues.

"Bedrooms are awash with Japanese straw and rope combined with marine stripes and plaster frescoes with aquatic motifs," said the hotel. "Evocative of an ocean liner, each bedroom incorporates curved forms and long horizontal lines."

Meilichzon, founder of Paris-based design agency Chzon, is a frequent collaborator of the Experimental Group, and has designed the interiors for several of its properties.

Earlier this year, she gave a bohemian refresh to Ibiza's first hotel, now called the Montesol Experimental, and previously completed the Hotel Il Palazzo Experimental in Venice.

The photography is by Mr Tripper.

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Architecture studio Snøhetta has completed Orionis, a planetarium in Douai, France, that features two domes surrounded by sweeping wooden walls.

The planetarium, which is located in northern France, was made from materials informed by the surrounding area.

Its elliptical shape is comprised of a wall made from poplar wood and a glazed wall with steel brise-soleils. These draw on the architecture of the nearby Arkéos archaeology museum, with which Orionis shares its parking lots and landscaped areas.

The shape of the 2,000-square-metre building was informed by its function as a space where visitors can explore the night sky.

"​We wanted to propose an extraordinary meeting place and a new destination for the inhabitants of Douai," said Snøhetta co-founder Kjetil Trædal Thorsen.

"The architectural and urban concept of our project takes its inspiration from the elliptical movement of the stars," he added.

"Being continuous, fluid and perpetual are notions that we have reinterpreted in the project, not only in terms of the shape but also in the experience that visitors will have of the planetarium, all senses employed."

The planetarium, which opened to the public in May, houses a reception area, exhibition spaces and an amphitheatre. It features two domes, which are covered in PVC and house the building's screening and projection rooms.

These can be seen from afar and were designed as a way of showcasing the planetarium's function through its shape.

A slightly inclined ramp links the different parts of the planetarium, which holds an elliptical courtyard at its centre.

This features a planted garden that can be seen from the rest of the building through the surrounding glass walls.

Snøhetta worked with engineering consultants CET Ingénierie, Impact Conseil et Ingénierie and Cicanord and acoustical consultant Studio Dap on the project.

The studio also collaborated with landscape company Atelier Silva Landscaping to optimise the surrounding landscape to "promote biodiversity".

Inside, the building was designed to create a sense of "coherence and continuity", with visitors following a circuit that leads from the entrance to an immersive room.

A ramp then brings them down to the ground floor and exit.

The building also houses an observatory area and offices on the first floor.

Snøhetta designed the project with some sustainable features, with its heating coming from geothermal energy and sensors installed on openings to provide "intelligent natural ventilation".

The planetarium's lower level has a green roof planted with wild grass.

The studio also used locally sourced materials and added sunshades to help regulate the temperature of the building.

Orionis marks one of the first projects that was completely conceived, managed and built by Snøhetta's Paris studio.

"We are extremely excited to showcase the Snøhetta approach for delivering high-quality cultural and educational buildings in France," said Oliver Page, managing director of Snøhetta's Paris studio.

Other recent projects by Snøhetta include a shingle-clad viewing tower in Austria and a cavernous climbing centre in Norway.

In the US, workers at the company's offices recently voted down a motion to unionise.

The photography is by Jad Sylla.

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A glazed internal "street" and bridges link the spaces of the Henri Moissan centre for biology, pharmacy and chemistry, which has been completed by Bernard Tschumi Architects and Groupe-6.

Located at Paris-Saclay University, one of the largest university buildings in France, the 74,000-square-metre facility provides labs, classrooms, auditoriums, social spaces, restaurants and offices for the university, and is named after Nobel prize-winning chemist and pharmacist Henri Moissan.

Paris and New York City-based Bernard Tschumi Architects won a 2018 competition to design the project, with a diagrammatic proposal that sees six distinct volumes linked by an internal street and glazed link bridges.

Forming a U shape, the facility is organised into three areas – teaching blocks and lecture halls to the west, a glazed atrium to the north and a research and laboratory block to the east, which was designed in collaboration with French practice Groupe-6.

"The main meeting spaces are located in the atrium, which expands into and links the 'street of research' and 'street of education'," Bernard Tschumi Architects told Dezeen.

"This acts as a spine throughout the project that connects every part of the building on the upper ground floor," it added.

"The primary circulation is public but leads to private and restricted-access labs and teaching spaces reserved for researchers and students."

The atrium block and bridges at either side face onto the campus with a fully-glazed facade and have been covered in a pattern of metal framework informed by diagrams of molecular structures.

The research and classroom blocks, meanwhile, are defined by precast concrete mullions.

Seating spaces, raised on mezzanine levels and connected by staircases and walkways, create a social "heart" of the building, wrapping around two central auditoriums that are separated by two voids at the block's centre.

To the west, the educational wing is split into four blocks, three of which contain additional auditoriums surrounded by classrooms and communal spaces accessed by the central street.

Dark brown oriented strand board (OSB) visually distinguishes the public areas and auditoriums, standing out against the primarily white finishes of the classrooms and labs.

"Sobriety was our goal. We used the colour white as a general background and the colour brown of the OSB as a warm signifier for all the main exchange areas, including the street of research, street of education and some of the auditoriums," explained the studio.

Other recent projects by Bernard Tschumi Architects include the Exploratorium museum in Tianjin – the studio's first project in China – which features a number of chimney-shaped gallery spaces clad in perforated copper panels.

Dezeen also recently spoke to studio founder Bernard Tschumi about the legacy of deconstructivism.

The photography is by Christian Richters, courtesy of Bernard Tschumi Architects unless stated otherwise. 

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A French vineyard and sculpture park is showcasing the iconic furniture of late French designer Pierre Paulin inside a pavilion designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

The exhibition – Pierre Paulin Program: Des idées courbes, Des formes libres – is on show at the Château La Coste estate near Aix-en-Provence.

It sees some of Paulin's most celebrated designs, including the shell-like Alpha Club Chair and the distinctively folded Déclive chaise longue, used to furnish the Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium.

The building, which opened in early 2022, was the last project designed by Niemeyer before his death in 2012.

The staging creates a dialogue between the work of these two influential 20th-century figures.

"While Paulin and Niemeyer worked in different fields of design, it is evident through this exhibition that they both shared a deep appreciation for the expressive potential of curves," said the project team.

"Their creative outputs have had a significant impact on the world of design and architecture and, whether in furniture or buildings, their use of flowing, sculptural forms has brought life and energy to the spaces and objects they inhabit."

Developed with curator Lyna Ahanda, the exhibition centres around the Pierre Paulin Program, a concept for a residential furniture system that was developed by Paulin between 1969 and 1972 but was unrealised in his lifetime.

The system is based on the idea of dividing spaces using large-scale furniture pieces rather than wall partitions so that they can be easily reconfigured to suit occupant needs.

The key piece is Ensemble Dune, a sofa formed of upholstered modules made from foam, resin and fibreglass.

These are arranged in a large grid to create a kind of furniture landscape.

The design was originally envisioned for Herman Miller but never went into production.

In an interview shortly before his death in 2009, Paulin described it as his biggest professional regret. He believed this approach might replace traditional types of furniture.

The concept was finally made a reality in 2020 thanks to Paulin, Paulin, Paulin, a company set up by the designer's wife and business partner Maia Paulin, son Benjamin Paulin and daughter-in-law Alice Lemoine.

The work was first presented in Maison à Bordeaux – a seminal OMA-designed house commissioned by Lemoine's late father Jean-François Lemoine, where her mother Hélène still lives today.

But with the new exhibition, the designs are being opened up to a much wider audience.

Château La Coste has become a major tourist destination due to its impressive collection of art and architecture, which includes the Richard Rogers Drawing Gallery, Frank Gehry's 2008 Serpentine Pavilion and sculptures by Louise Bourgeois and Yoko Ono.

Other key pieces in the show include the Module shelving walls, the curved C sofas and chairs, and the Tapis-Siège seating.

At a time when the boundaries between home and workspace are increasingly blurring, the designs suggest how furniture might become more flexible and multi-functional.

"The production is based on the limitless potential of a dual layout based on a perfect grid configuration, where horizontal and vertical elements can be used as floors, seated elements and storage partitions, offering endless combinations of living spaces," said the project team.

Pierre Paulin Program: Des idées courbes, Des formes libres opened at Château La Coste on 29 May 2023 and continues until September. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

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Interior design studio Hauvette & Madani has made a sumptuous wine-red kitchen the focus of this otherwise neutral apartment in Paris.

The Republique apartment is set within a typical Haussmann-era building in the French capital's 11th arrondissement and belongs to a family with two children.

From the outset of the renovation, the clients called for the home to orbit around a "spectacular" atmospheric kitchen.

Hauvette & Madani responded by using a striking colour scheme, rendering all of the kitchen's linoleum cabinets and its curved breakfast island in a wine-red colour. The same shade was also applied to the ceiling but in a glossy lacquer.

"We wanted a dark but joyful colour and ended up deciding on this substantial red," founders Samantha Hauvette and Lucas Madani told Dezeen. "We also love the fact [the colour's] eccentricity matches the rest of the calm and soft apartment."

Lustrous decorative elements such as an aged-mirror splashback and brass light were also introduced to the space, and a support column was wrapped in stainless steel.

The room's original wooden flooring was overlaid with travertine and Emperador marble tiling.

A travertine-framed doorway looks through to the adjacent living room, where walls were painted an oatmeal beige, matching a bean-shaped velvet sofa from French brand Pierre Augustin Rose.

A pair of wriggly-edged oak coffee tables and a terracotta-coloured edition of French designer Pierre Paulin's Ribbon chair were also used to dress the space.

The dining room next door is centred by an oval travertine table, around which steel-framed leather seats have been arranged. At the rear of the room is a tall white dresser inset with oak-lined niches where ornaments or artworks can be displayed.

A Murano glass chandelier hangs from the ceiling, where ornate moulding was carefully preserved.

The project also saw Hauvette & Madani refresh the parents' bedroom, which now features 1930s-style lighting and a bespoke oak headboard. This winds around the back of the room and has arched cut-outs that accommodate bedside tables.

A walnut-wood vanity cabinet and vintage Italian mirror were also fitted in its en-suite bathroom.

Often considered the heart of the home, the kitchen is where architects and designers enjoy getting playful with colour.

Other examples include the kitchen inside Sans-Arc Studio's Plaster Fun House, where a pink terrazzo breakfast island contrasts duck egg-blue cabinetry.

And the kitchen within this Belgian apartment by Carmine Van Der Linden and Thomas Geldof features birch wood cupboards that were stained a murky hue of green.

The photography is by Yannick Labrousse. 

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LA studio PlayLab Inc and construction company California Skateparks have designed a temporary skatepark for Vans in Paris that was partly made from clear plexiglass to reference the nearby Louvre museum.

Unveiled in the French capital during Men's Fashion Week, the skate installation was located at the Pont Alexandre III bridge along the River Seine.

The structure featured a series of skateable elements arranged atop a rectilinear plinth, which was patterned with the distinctive checkerboard motif associated with the American skateboarding shoe brand Vans.

Skatelite was used to create the plinth – a highly durable solid paper composite material that is typically used as riding surfaces for skateboarding and other extreme sports.

Various classic ramps were created from transparent plexiglass and arranged across the plinth in a skateable formation.

"Clear plexiglass lets the audiences watch skating from inside the ramps and references the iconic Louvre pyramid nearby," said PlayLab Inc co-founders Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin.

A series of chunky checkerboard walls were also positioned atop the plinth, complete with LED screens that revealed live stream skate footage that was captured on 14 CCTV cameras throughout the week. The cameras were also embedded into the installation.

"Together, we wanted to create a place that was skateable, but didn't immediately register as a skatepark," continued Coates and Franklin.

"A series of walls hold clear skate elements, simultaneously nodding towards the future while referencing the past – specifically, the legendary acrylic skate ramps of the 1970s," they told Dezeen.

While the installation has now been dismantled, Vans and California Skateparks have donated elements of the structure to the Cosanostra Skatepark in Chelles, France.

The installation was created to announce OTW by Vans, a premium category that the brand described as "a new platform where the most elevated product expressions and brand experiences come together with the innovators of art, design, style, skate culture and entertainment."

Recently, clothing brand Supreme added a fully floating skate bowl to its Los Angeles flagship store, while the world's first multi-storey skatepark opened in Kent, England, last year.

The photography is by Atiba Jefferson unless otherwise stated and is courtesy of OTW Vans.

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Sunflowers, salt and algae are among the biomaterials used to complete Le Magasin Électrique, the workspace of circular-design lab Atelier Luma that it self-designed with studios Assemble and BC Architects & Studies.

Based at Luma Arles arts centre in France, Le Magasin Électrique occupies a former industrial building and contains laboratories that now serve as Atelier Luma's primary workplace.

Atelier Luma, Assemble and BC Architects & Studies' design is defined by an unusual palette of materials made from locally sourced bio-waste, various by-products and other under-valued materials.

It aims to embody Atelier Luma's "bioregional approach" to design, which is a term it uses to describe its transformation of resources from the surrounding region into innovative, low-carbon building products. For Atelier Luma, this "bioregion" covers a 70-kilometre radius and includes the Camargue wetlands, the Alpilles mountain range and the Crau flat plains.

"The overarching goal was to create a building as a prototype that would allow for this low-impact bioregional approach to design to be tested at scale," Atelier Luma told Dezeen.

"Through investigation and mapping, we uncover the many layers – historical, cultural, environmental, social, and economic – that are making up this bioregion and weave them together into potential projects," it continued.

"Rather than seeing things from a linear centralised perspective, we believe in complexifying the existing ecosystems of bioregions in order for us to move toward more sustainable and eventually regenerative practices," added Atelier Luma.

"Any good chef will have detailed knowledge of how and in which conditions their ingredients are produced, it should be no different for architects and designers."

Le Magasin Électrique forms part of the Parc des Ateliers, a former industrial site built in the mid-19th century that is now home to the Luma Arles. Until 1984, it was used for the construction and maintenance of trains belonging to the railway company SNCF.

In 2013, a renovation of the site began, leading to the recent opening of the Luma Arles Tower designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, which also incorporates biomaterials by Atelier Luma.

According to Atelier Luma, there are nearly 20 of its unique building materials used throughout the project, each made from resources found across the region.

Each one was developed to suit a specific need – ranging from securing the building's structure to meeting its acoustics and technical requirements.

"If you walk through the buildings and spaces and you look around, you see so many stories," said BC Architects & Studies architect Laurens Bekemans.

"The building would become a testing ground, a space to experiment," continued Assemble co-founder Joe Halligan. "The building is also a prototype or a kind of constant construction.”

Among the unusual materials are bioplastic plug sockets and wall and acoustic panels made from agricultural waste including sunflower fibres.

Elsewhere, door handles are made from salt crystals, bathroom tiles are made from algae and rammed earth walls and external earth plaster are made with demolition waste.

Algae has also been used to filter and recycle wastewater from the building. This is then repurposed in the irrigation of the studio's garden that is used for research and for cooling.

According to Atelier Luma, the only raw materials that were used at Le Magasin Électrique were classed as waste products, byproducts or under-valued materials.

Meanwhile, the criteria for using bio-based materials was that "they could not be a resource that was destined for food consumption".

While making use of Atelier Luma's unusual materials, the design of the building also had to be functional and flexible enough to accommodate the studio's "ever-expanding activities".

The brief outlined the specific spaces required, including highly technical labs and workshops, but also areas that can accommodate non-specific and "unknown activities" in the future.

Inside, Le Magasin Électrique is divided into three zones. Many aspects of the original building have been retained within these, giving rise to three distinct areas.

"The building was constructed in stages, this led to the creation of three distinct volumes within the building," said Atelier Luma.

"These subdivisions have been retained to allow for three distinct spaces with differing qualities, both in terms of program and materiality."

One of the zones is formed from a wooden structure dyed with indigo, which combines a walkway, workshops, toilets and a mezzanine desk space.

"Timber was chosen for its speed of construction, robustness and ability to accept change," said Assemble's Maria Lisogorskaya. "The use of timber allows screws to be fixed throughout the space, wherever might be useful, helping to create an unprecious and productive atmosphere appropriate for a workshop."

Original elements that have been retained include external windows and door openings. On the south facade, the windows have been filled to reduce glare but remain distinguishable.

The original roof tiles have been preserved, but insulated below to improve energy performance. Any tiles that were previously damaged have been crushed and reused in the new earth render on the facade, as well as in terrazzo flooring.

Other alterations to the existing shell of Le Magasin Électrique include the introduction of long skylights to improve natural lighting and ventilation.

Reflecting on the project, Atelier Luma said all of the unusual products it has used are replicable at scale, though this is not its aim.

"The materials applied in this building can be applied in other buildings throughout the region and even beyond," Atelier Luma explained.

"However it is not our wish to ship these materials all over the world," it continued. "We believe that what is most replicable is not necessarily the physical outcomes of this bioregional design approach, but rather the methodology of the approach itself."

Assemble's James Binning agreed but highlighted that this will also require new regulation frameworks.

"Building regulations have been designed around the properties of industrialized, standardized products and how these materials perform, but if we are going to transition to a culture of using materials that are organic and which vary from place to place, we will also need to design different frameworks of regulation that allow for that," Binning explained.

Circular-design lab Atelier Luma was established in 2016 by Luma Arles – an arts centre in Arles. It is currently led under the direction of Jan Boelen.

In 2021, its material designer Henna Burney took part in our Dezeen 15 festival, during which she told Dezeen "salt is a material of the future" and exhibited cladding she has made from the crystalline substance as part of the studio.

The photography is by Adrian Deweerdt unless stated otherwise.

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Paris has reimposed a height limit for new buildings in the city, following the controversial construction of Tour Triangle tower designed by Swiss studio Herzog & de Meuron.

The height limit, announced yesterday, will limit new buildings in the French capital to a height of 37 metres or 12 storeys.

It reinstates the same Parisian planning law that was introduced in 1977 following the construction of Tour Montparnasse, a 210-metre-tall office tower by architects Eugène Beaudouin, Urbain Cassan and Louis Hoym de Marien that was also highly contested.

The 1977 height limit was in place until 2010. It was overturned by former mayor Bertrand Delanoë for a limit of 180 metres for office towers and 50 metres for housing blocks.

The ban has been reintroduced as part of mayor Anne Hidalgo's Local Bioclimatic Urban Plan, which is aimed at reducing Paris' carbon emissions.

It was also prompted by the construction of the pyramid-shaped tower Tour Triangle by Herzog & de Meuron, which started in 2021 and is scheduled for completion in 2026.

Its construction, which has faced backlash and was delayed by 12 years due to various legal and planning battles, has become the focus of the council's drive to limit building heights, alongside the 180- and 125-metre-high Tours Duo skyscrapers by Jean Nouvel.

Once complete, Tour Triangle will be the city's third tallest building. Its trapezoidal form means that from central Paris it will resemble a thin tower, but from the east and west, its full width will be visible. Inside it will contain a hotel and offices, alongside a conference centre, shops and restaurants.

According to newspaper The Times, the ban is part of a wider "bioclimatic" plan for the city that Hidalgo said aims to ensure Paris remains "attractive and pleasant in coming years despite the acceleration in the temperature".

It also reported that the fight for the ban was led by Green councillor Émile Meunier.

"They said Paris was naff and needed high towers to compete with London's city," Meunier said. "Now it's the end of towers in Paris."

On Twitter, Meunier also described the move as "historical".

"The new local urban plan of Paris marks the end of the towers and returns to a reasonable height," he wrote.

Elsewhere, China also recently limited the height of buildings in the country. The construction of supertall skyscrapers has been limited to 500 metres, with buildings over 250 metres "strictly restricted". The new policy, released on the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development's website, also banned "copycat behaviour" and established the role of chief architects in its cities.

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Period details are mixed with contemporary interventions inside these renovated apartments in Paris, built in the mid-19th century during Georges-Eugène Haussmann's reconstruction of the French capital.

In his role as the prefect of the Seine département under Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann was responsible for creating the network of boulevards that still define the city's urban landscape today.

The homogenous apartment buildings flanking these boulevards were designed to strict guidelines, all made from cream-coloured stone with a steep four-sided mansard roof and no more than six storeys.

Although Haussmann was less prescriptive about the building's interiors, they generally feature high ceilings and parquet floors alongside elaborate mouldings and boiserie.

Read on for six examples of how architects and interior designers have brought these apartments into the 21st century, including a book lover's loft and two flats combined to form a family home in the Marais.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring bedrooms with minimalist interiors, concrete kitchens and marble-lined bathrooms.

Wood Ribbon apartment by Toledano + Architects

Original details such as parquet floors and ornate ceiling plasterwork were retained in the renovation of this apartment, which had been left largely untouched since the end of the 19th century.

But local studio Toledano + Architects tore down several partition walls to create a more open floorplan, traversed by a snaking plywood wall that roughly divides the apartment into three zones while providing tactical storage in the living room and kitchen.

"I really wanted to enhance this dichotomy between ancient and contemporary," founder Gabrielle Toledano told Dezeen. "It's very relevant in a city like Paris where both are in a constant dialogue."

Find out more about Wood Ribbon apartment ›

Apartment Canal Saint Martin by Rodolphe Parente

French interior designer Rodolphe Parente made only a few minor architectural interventions when overhauling this apartment in Canal Saint-Martin, exposing long sealed-off doorways and creating a hybrid dining room and kitchen.

Instead, he modernised the apartment by contrasting original details such as mouldings with unexpected contemporary details, colours and the "radical" art collection of the owner.

In the bedroom, a vivid purple rug clashes with caramel-coloured walls while in the living room, period wall panelling highlights the modernity of the sofa and the glossy coffee table.

Find out more about Apartment Canal Saint Martin ›

Apartment XIV by Studio Razavi

With several partition walls removed, French office Studio Razavi created a new layout for this apartment by slotting a multi-faceted furniture block made from wood-fibre panels into the remaining gaps.

Its staggered profile creates sightlines between the different areas of the house while framing some of the building's original Hausmann-style ceiling mouldings.

Painted in a muted slate grey, the furniture block performs a different function in every room – acting as a storage cabinet in the kitchen, a TV mount in the living room and a desk in the study.

Find out more about Apartment XIV ›

Marais apartment by Sophie Dries

Two flats become one 100-square-metre residence in this renovation project that French architect Sophie Dries completed in trendy Marais for a family of four.

Period details were painted in simple white, providing a contrast with new additions such as the Hans J Wegner chairs and the dyed linen curtains in the living room

"The Haussmannian style was refined and pared down, in order to introduce minimal lines better suited to a modern family," Dries explained.

Find out more about Marais apartment ›

Enter the Diamond by Atelier 37.2

An additional bathroom is housed inside the three-metre-high birchwood volume at the centre of this residence in the French capital, designed by local studio Atelier 37.2.

The sharp lines of the diamond-shaped structure contrast with the apartment's ornate ceiling mouldings and white-painted walls.

"This tension generates a fictional potential that plays with the imagination of the inhabitants," said the studio.

Find out more about Enter the Diamond ›

Arsenal loft by h2o Architectes

This three-room loft is set inside the mansard roof of a Haussmann-era building in the Arsenale district, which originally served as servant's quarters for the apartments below.

Parisian firm h2o Architectes opened up its floor plan to make the most of the top-floor views while installing wooden bookshelves to define different areas and house the extensive library of the apartment's book-loving owner.

Their timber construction creates a visual connection with the original parquet floors, while the white paint used to brighten walls and other structural elements continues onto some sections of the floor.

Find out more about Arsenal loft ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring bedrooms with minimalist interiors, concrete kitchens and marble-lined bathrooms.

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French studio PPA Architectures has designed a specialist facility dedicated to music and dance with a pleated white metal facade on the outskirts of Toulouse, France.

Named Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the 3,400-square-metre facility is dedicated to providing students with a diversified artistic education in the fields of music and dance from the age of four.

The "simple and stringent" building unites its programmes of music and dance with a double-height performance space at its heart. Specialist teaching spaces are organised around this central auditorium.

The conservative was built in the suburb of Blagnac on a site at the southern edge of a large, landscaped park facing a high school in Toulouse's Andromède district.

PPA Architectures designed the building to frame the neighbourhood's public spaces. A two-storey volume is set back from the main road, while a one-storey block adjoins the primary block to the north and creates an enclosed public garden.

"The inverse 'L' formed by the two buildings frames a large, accessible garden bordered to the north by a walkway crossing the courtyard and indicating a second entrance into the building, placing the facility at the crossroads of the neighbourhood," the studio told Dezeen.

The organisation of the building is both inward-facing, due to its function as an educational establishment, and outward-facing as it is the neighbourhood's major municipal facility.

A generous paved forecourt expanding from a large covered undercroft acts as the main entrance to the building. A public route through the ground floor of the building leads to the gardens on its northern side.

The layout of the conservatoire gives over the ground floor to dance and the first floor to music. A double-height volume at the centre of the building forms the auditorium, and acts as the "interface" between music and dance.

"This space is the 'changing' heart of the building," PPA Architectures explained. "[You can] imagine all kinds of stage set-ups , reflecting the evolution of teaching and practice in music and dance."

The auditorium stage is equipped with a retractable wall that can divide the space into two separate performance areas. Pleats of timber acoustic panelling line the walls and ceiling of the space.

Tiered steps form seating in the hall below and connect the two storeys of the conservatoire. They rise up above the reception desk and main entrance to meet a series of music teaching rooms arranged around the edges of the building.

Externally, the building's reinforced concrete structure is clad in a perforated white metal mesh. Vertical "gills" in the facade open outwards to form sunscreens and act as a counterpoint to the overall horizontality of the building.

"The use of wood in the central area and its pleated aspects correspond to acoustic treatment options," explained the studio. "The same pleated aspect was used on the outside to make a metallic 'membrane' sunscreen before the project bays windows."

PPA Architectures is a Toulouse practice founded in 2011. The Conservatoire of Music and Dance is the latest in a series of municipal projects it has contributed to Toulouse's innovation district.

The studio previously designed a student housing scheme with metal shutters and a giant exhibition centre with a perforated green facade designed in collaboration with Dutch office OMA.

The photography is by Sylvain Mille.

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An exhibition dedicated to the work of British architect Norman Foster has opened at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, showcasing drawings and original models produced by the architect over the last six decades.

The exhibition, which according to the Norman Foster Foundation is the largest-ever retrospective display of Foster's work, features around 130 of the architect's projects including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarters, Hong Kong International Airport and Apple Park.

Designs that informed Foster's work are also exhibited, including works by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, French painter Fernand Léger, Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi and Italian painter Umberto Boccioni, and even cars, which the architect is passionate about.

The exhibition, simply called Norman Foster, was designed by Foster with his architecture studio Foster + Partners and nonprofit organisation the Norman Foster Foundation.

Curated by Centre Pompidou deputy director Frédéric Migayrou, the exhibition aims to showcase examples of Foster's innovation and technology, his approach to sustainability and his ideas for the future of the built environment.

"This exhibition traces the themes of sustainability and anticipating the future," said Foster.

"Throughout the decades we have sought to challenge conventions, reinvent building types and demonstrate an architecture of light and lightness, inspired by nature, which can be about joy as well as being eco-friendly."

The 2,200-square-metre exhibition begins with a room dedicated to Foster's sketches and drawings, a practice he uses to communicate ideas and log design inspiration.

"For me, design starts with a sketch, continuing as a tool of communication through the long process that follows in the studio, factories and finally onto the building site," said Foster.

"In 1975 I started the habit of carrying an A4 notebook for sketching and writing – a selection of these are displayed in the central cabinets, surrounded by walls devoted to personal drawings."

The exhibition continues in a large space with partition walls that separates it into seven themes: Nature and Urbanity, Skin and Bones, Vertical City, History and Tradition, Planning and Place, Networks and Mobilities, and Future Perspectives.

The Nature and Urbanity section explores Foster's approach to preserving nature by building "dense urban clusters, with privacy ensured by design," the studio said.

Referencing a critic's comment that the external appearance of Foster's projects could be categorised as having a smooth "skin" facade or expressing its skeletal structure, the Skin and Bones portion of the exhibition showcases projects that illustrate the relationship between structure, services and cladding.

In the Vertical City section, the studio showcases how it created "breathing" towers by designing open, stacked spaces.

"We were the first to question the traditional tower, with its central core of mechanical plant, circulation and structure, and instead to create open, stacked spaces, flexible for change and with see-through views," said Foster.

"Here, the ancillary services were grouped alongside the working or living spaces, which led to a further evolution with the first ever series of 'breathing' towers."

"In the quest to reduce energy consumption and create a healthier and more desirable lifestyle, we showed that a system of natural ventilation, moving large volumes of fresh filtered air, could be part of a controlled internal climate," the architect continued.

The History and Tradition section aims to provide insight into examples of historic and vernacular architecture that influenced Foster, while the Planning and Places portion explores masterplanning and placemaking in urban spaces.

Towards the open exhibition space's exit, the Networks and Mobility section displays examples of transport and infrastructure and leads to the final room, Future Perspectives, which exhibits concepts for future methods of travel and communication.

On display are details of autonomous self-driving systems and designs for habitats on Mars and the moon that were developed with NASA and the European Space Agency.

Foster recently spoke with Dezeen about his views on sustainability in architecture, in which he said "there are lots of dangerous myths".

The photography is by Nigel Young from Foster + Partners.

The Norman Foster exhibition is on display at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, from 10 May to 7 August 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh has created a brick workshop in Louviers, France, for luxury brand Hermès that is the first industrial building to achieve France's highest environmental labelling.

The wood-framed Maroquinerie de Louviers workshop, located in Hermès' hub in Normandy, was built from over 500,000 bricks produced by local brick-makers located 70 kilometres from the site.

Large, swooping arches open the 6,200-square-metre building up to an internal courtyard around which the workshops are placed, with arched windows designed to let in natural light.

Maroquinerie de Louviers will house 260 leatherwork artisans who will produce bags, leather goods, saddles and bridles, marking the first time Hermès has established an equestrian workshop outside of Paris.

"The design of the project is a tribute to the horse, this extraordinary being," Paris-based Ghotmeh said. "Besides the fact that the brick construction tells of a local material, made from the earth of the place, the natural span of a brick breakthrough is an arch."

"The design of the facade is then finely orchestrated by these galloping arches from side to side, reminiscent of the lightness of horse jumps in its proportions," she added.

The square shape of the building was also informed by a Hermès' carré, the brand's famous square silk scarves.

Ghotmeh designed the Maroquinerie de Louviers to use as much natural light and ventilation as possible, to limit the need for artificial light and heating.

It is heated using geothermal energy from 13 probes that reach a depth of 150 metres, while 2,300 square-metre of solar panels provide power.

The workshop has been given France's highest energy and carbon performance rating, the E4C2 label, with E4 denoting that it is a positive energy building and C2 meaning that it has the "most efficient operation for carbon footprint reduction."

"This project was born with a very fine ambition, that of building the first low-carbon, positive-energy factory in France, labeled E4C2," Ghotmeh said.

"It is an environmental and architectural technical feat since it is also a place that is dedicated to production, so it needs a lot of energy and electricity to operate," she added.

"We thought about the architecture of this project in a bioclimatic way, responding to natural resources, already thinking about intelligently designed architecture to reduce the building's energy needs."

Maroquinerie de Louviers is located on an industrial brownfield site and soil excavated for the foundations was used by Belgian landscape architect Erik Dhont to create three hectares of gardens.

These were designed to preserve biodiversity and have a system for recovering rainwater and diverting it back into the water table.

"Through this project, I wanted to upgrade an industrial wasteland," Ghotmeh said. "Surrounded by nature and extraordinary hillsides, the site remains magnificent and I think that you have to sublimate the beauty in a place when you build."

"Through the architecture of this factory, I try to offer an architecture, a timeless semantics to a place of production."

Inside an internal courtyard and meeting place an artwork by artist Emmanuel Saulnier was added, comprising seven stainless steel needles suspended by leather stirrup straps, with the straps made by the Hermès artisans.

The building is Hermès' twenty-first leather workshop.

Leather is a popular material used in the luxury fashion industry, but a growing focus on its environmental impact is leading to the development of numerous alternatives. Several brands including Adidas, Stella McCartney, Lululemon and Gucci's parent company Kering recently invested in a leather alternative made from mycelium called Mylo, while Hermès partnered with biomaterials company MycoWorks to create a mycelium version of its Victoria shopper bag.

Ghotmeh's previous designs include the Stone Garden apartment block in Beirut, which survived the devastating explosion in the city in 2020. The architect is also designing the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion in London, which will be built from timber.

The photography is by Iwan Baan.

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Dutch architect Anne Holtrop has used rippled sheets of acrylic to create a water-like partition inside this Parisian boutique by jewellery designer Charlotte Chesnais.

The store is set along Boulevard Saint Germain and is the second retail location that Anne Holtrop has devised for the brand.

Like the inaugural branch – which features a striking acrylic display table – Chesnais wanted this space to present her jewellery in a way that fosters a "unique spatial experience".

Holtrop's answer was to use acrylic again – but this time to construct a towering partition wall.

"In the first store, we included a very large table that is almost the full size of the space," he told Dezeen. "In the second store, we flipped this concept as the existing space has a great height and small floor area."

The translucent partition runs across the middle of the store and was CNC milled to have a rippled, almost watery surface texture. The divider is also inbuilt with tiered shelves and drawers, meaning any rings, necklaces or bracelets showcased inside seem to float.

The rest of the store's interior was largely kept simple. Walls surrounding the partition were washed with beige marmorino plaster and decoration was restricted to a curvaceous gold sculpture that mimics the form of Chesnais' designs.

There is also a trompe l'oeil infinity mirror and a small wooden stool.

A doorway in the acrylic partition guides customers to a curved flight of stairs at the rear of the store.

These lead up to a mezzanine-level room that's dedicated to showcasing the brand's fine jewellery collection.

Acrylic was used here again to make an expansive wall-mounted display unit. Other surfaces were coated with glossy forest-green epoxy paint.

A plump sofa was set into the room's back wall and a thick jade-coloured carpet was been laid across the floor.

"We wanted to give it a different, more intimate atmosphere, in which you sit and relax like in a little cocktail bar," Holtrop said.

This isn't the first time that Anne Holstrop has designed a space for a fashion brand.

In 2021, the architect remodelled Maison Margiela's London store, where he inserted a series of gypsum walls that resemble fabric cuttings.

The photography is by James Nelson. 

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French studio Olivia Fauvelle Architecture has used glazed tiles and concrete lintels to transform the outbuilding and courtyard of a house in the south of France.

The outbuilding has been refurbished and extended to physically connect it to Maison Jericho, the 20th-century stone house to which it belongs in Marseille.

Olivia Fauvelle Architecture's aim was to create a "seamless transition" through the garden of the home and better connect the two buildings along the long, narrow plot.

The studio's refurbishment of Maison Jericho's outhouse involved the creation of a living space and bedroom. A new link corridor joins these rooms to the main home.

In the garden, a tiled terrace and pool act as transitional spaces between the buildings.

"The particularity of this project was to deal with two pre-existing figures, both already carrying an extremely strong aesthetic and emotional presence," explained studio director Olivia Fauvelle.

"[First], although abandoned: an outdoor space with high potential, and [second] a vernacular construction," Fauvelle continued.

New external walls have been clad in deep-green wall tiles to directly reflect the materiality of the garden, while the existing stone walls and timber trusses of the outhouse have been combined with new concrete lintels.

"The glazed tiled walls reflect the changing hues of seasons, sky and water," said Fauvelle.

Inside Maison Jericho's outbuilding, whitewashed stone walls form a backdrop to new picture windows and a window seat that create a connection to the outdoors.

A curved white curtain is used as a theatrical device to close off views from the openings overlooking the garden and to provide a muted quality to the space.

The approach to Maison Jericho's garden and outdoor spaces was, in part, informed by the Brazilian landscape designs of architect Lina Bo Bardi.

The landscape design aims to provide meaningful interaction and exchange with the natural qualities of the site, Fauvelle explained.

"The external spaces are an integral part of the project," said Fauvelle. "[They] reveal the depth of the plot in successive layers."

Other residential projects recently featured on Dezeen where outdoor spaces play a key role include a Victorian maisonette in London overlooking a lush walled garden by Nimtim Architects and a "tiny palazzo" in the garden of a Porto home by Fala Atelier.

The photography is by Manon Vandenhoeck unless stated otherwise.

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French interior designer Rodolphe Parente has completed a contemporary overhaul of a 19th-century Parisian apartment, reflecting both the building's heritage and the "radical" art collection of its owner.

Originally built during Haussmann's major reconstruction of Paris, the 150-square-metre flat is located in the Canal Saint-Martin neighbourhood in northeastern Paris.

As part of the renovation, Parente sought to celebrate the apartment's extensive period details. In the entrance hall, a band of gold leaf now highlights the geometry of the circular ceiling and missing sections of the mouldings were painstakingly reinstated.

"The main idea was to preserve and at some points restore the classic Haussmannian codes of a Parisian apartment," Parente told Dezeen. "It was important for me to keep the Parisian vibration as well as the radical tone of my client's art taste."

Parente began by opening up the apartment to improve the sense of flow, exposing long sealed-off doorways and connecting the dining room with the kitchen.

Taking cues from the craftsmanship inherent in the apartment, Parente drafted in several contemporary craftspeople including custom painting studio Redfield & Dattner, which created an abstract fresco on the new wall behind the dining table.

"I wanted to bring the hand of craftsmanship into this project," said Parente.

"The people I have worked with on this apartment bring something to the creativity in general."

Throughout the space, a palette of warm neutrals was used to create a sense of immersion.

"I chose neutral tones to subtly enhance the classical heritage of the apartment and keep an enveloping atmosphere," the interior designer explained.

Against this cohesive backdrop, surprisingly colourful elements leap out including the lacquered yellow light above the dining table – Parente's own design – and the vivid purple rug used against caramel-coloured walls in the main bedroom.

The kitchen balances cabinet finishes of stainless steel and pastel pink with a frame-like marble splashback, created by French artist Alice Guittard for Double V Gallery.

"The kitchen is a deconstructed block sitting in the Haussmanian environment," Parente said. "It is connected to the historical elements through its composition."

In the living room, a sculptural vintage sofa is sited in the centre of the space, anchored by a graphic rug and positioned to disrupt the angles of the room.

Parente played with contrast via the material and colour palettes throughout the apartment. In the reading room, period wall panelling highlights the modernity of the sofa and chair with their highly lacquered side panels.

"For this room, we have designed custom-made furniture with contemporary and radical shapes bringing a form of reflection to the space," the designer said.

The idea of juxtaposition continues with the art displayed in the apartment, with the client's often provocative pieces completing the aesthetic in each room.

"The client showed total faith in this balance between modernism and legacy for the interior design. He also wanted to keep this dialogue for the decoration and focused on staying eclectic in his choice of furniture and art," said Parente.

"The client has a radical point of view regarding art and design. It was a real pleasure to create a dialogue between the existing pieces and the interior design."

Other Hausmann-era apartment renovations in Paris have seen interior designers make more dramatic interventions, with Atelier 37.2 adding a sculptural wooden volume to house a new bathroom while Studio Razavi inserted a multifaceted furniture block that takes on a different function in each room.

The photography is by Giulio Ghirardi.

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In the arty Paris district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Stockholm design studio Halleroed has designed a new boutique for French bag and luggage brand L/Uniform.

Taking cues from the brand's simple, rational approach to design, Halleroed design lead Ruxandra Halleröd created a series of backdrops that allow the products to "pop out in a beautiful way".

The boutique is comprised of two rooms that drawing on L/Uniform's French heritage alongside a mixture of Japanese and Scandinavian design traditions – also known as Japandi.

The first room was designed to nod to the vernacular of the traditional French marketplace, with stepped display furniture and rustic materials, such as walls papered in woven raffia.

"It reminds us of L/Uniform's use of French canvas on its more functional bags, but on a bigger scale," Halleröd told Dezeen.

"We used a Shaker-inspired approach where bags are hung from hooks. There's an association with everyday market life because some of these bags are specifically made for bringing to the market."

To create a striking visual contrast with the natural textures of this space, Halleroed added a monolithic display table in deep burgundy with a high-gloss finish.

The second room is more "elegant and eclectic", according to Halleröd. Here, L/Uniform's leather handbags are displayed against a palette of soft pink and green, featuring an olive-coloured velvet sofa and pistachio display cabinet alongside tactile elements like the handwoven jute-and-wool carpet.

The same glossy red finish from the first room is also reprised – in this case applied to two exposed pipes, around which Halleroed has constructed a low timber cabinet.

"We worked with colour, texture and material as one entity, creating contrast and also unity," said Halleröd.

Around the counter, Halleroed added cedar cladding "for a Japanese look and feel".

This is mirrored across the shop with details such as a rice-paper pendant light by Isamu Noguchi and chairs by George Nakashima, as well as cedar table lamps with rice-paper shades created by a Japanese cabinetmaker.

Gallic influences are reflected in the lighting by Pierre Chareau and Charlotte Perriand and the bush-hammered limestone floor, which according to Halleröd has a "calm, vintage touch that for us is very French".

Halleroed also brought Swedish elements into the mix, reflecting the studio's own approach.

"With our minimalist Scandinavian mindset, we prefer to work with fewer elements and materials but in a conscious and precise way," said Halleröd.

"Working with wood and craft is something that I think is common for both Japan and Sweden, while we think of the warm tones here as being both French and Japanese."

"Many of the items in the store were handmade specifically for the space, which was important for us since we believe that this reflects the L/Uniform mentality and approach," she added.

Since it was founded in 1998, Halleroed has completed a number of high-end boutiques around the world.

Among them are an Acne Studios store in Chengdu and various outposts for Swedish streetwear brand Axel Arigato in Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen and London.

The photography is by Ludovic Balay

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Movable curtains of translucent PVC mesh cover the facade of this block of offices and flats in Paris, which has been converted from a 1970s concrete structure by local practice Moussafir Architectes.

The practice collaborated with Amsterdam-based design studio Inside Outside on the 10-metre-high curtain facade, introduced to complement the original building's concrete structure, which has been stripped back to create a "brutalist aesthetic".

"The principal quality of the original construction resided in its neutral and generic character," explained the studio.

"It is this overall grasp of the building's structure that guided our architectural choice, from the insertion of interior elements (staircases, guardrails, floor, and ceiling coverings) to the design of the envelope," it continued.

Across its ten floors, the existing building has been divided into four storeys of workspaces and four floors of flats, including a two-storey penthouse.

The basement and ground floor contains a series of showroom spaces illuminated by circular skylights, with an office space occupying the first floor above overlooking a small courtyard at the rear of the site.

Across all of these levels, the stripped-back concrete columns of the existing structure frame rough masonry walls, with the office given a warmer feel with wooden floors and ceiling panels.

Inside the flats, a similar interior treatment has been used, with the exposed concrete of the 1970s building complemented by white walls, metal window frames and simple partition walls.

At the top of the building, the two-storey penthouse is topped by a mansard roof, the exposed concrete frame of which defines the top floor library area, with skylit window boxes created in between the large supports.

"Our decision to expose the structure provided the incentive to not differentiate the dwelling spaces from the offices and to design the flats like offices," explained the studio.

Each level of the upper storey is sheltered by a row of motorised curtains on the exterior of the main facade, which have been perforated to create a pattern of a tree when all of them are closed.

"The curtain's undulating movement can be controlled on each floor as well as the lighting effects across the entire surface of the PVC mesh thanks to the discrete integration of LEDS," said the studio.

"Circular perforations define the outline of a tree, rendering the mesh permeable to the wind while also casting playful swathes of natural light into the interior," it continued.

Moussafir Architectes was founded by Jacques Moussafir and is based in Paris. Previous projects by the practice include a geometric, cubist-influence home in Paris, and a concert hall in Tours finished with a quilt-like material.

The photography is by Hervé Abbadie unless stated.

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Barlett School of Architecture professor Robin Wilson has shared with Dezeen a selection of eclectic brutalist buildings in Paris that are featured in his latest book, Brutalist Paris.

Published by Blue Crow Media, the Brutalist Paris book is made up of seven essays detailing over 50 buildings completed in the 1950s through to the 1980s.

"The aim is to recognise the level of endeavour and experimentation the period involved," Wilson told Dezeen.

The text explores the social, political and cultural contexts of brutalist buildings in the French capital, and is accompanied by photography by Nigel Green.

Described by Blue Crow Media as "the first cohesive study of Brutalist architecture in Paris", the book's photographs and essays detail some of the city's more celebrated brutalist structures, as well as ones that have been abandoned and demolished.

Author Wilson was drawn to Paris's examples of brutalist architecture because of its diversity of styles and approaches to building.

The book covers a range of building types and scales, from large urban developments to intimate living spaces and brutalist projects that have now been converted.

"I wanted a discursive and comparative reading of approaches, and one which is also contextual," said Wilson.

"This hopefully gives the impression of the account as being one generated by a sense of critical enquiry rather than a straight, fact-focused history, and which also captures a sense of the many journeys that the study involved."

"Parisian architecture of the brutalist period is very diverse in style, approach and philosophy, which makes defining it quite a challenge, and of course, the building materials and technologies change quite significantly over the period," the author continued.

"Many of the architects operating in the 1960s onwards wished to break from the models of modern construction, especially in housing, of the earlier post-war period, including the influence of Le Corbusier," he added.

"There was no general consensus on how to do this, and many radical propositions emerged, not just for new building forms, but also whole new urban environments."

Wilson hopes that from reading the book, readers will gain "a sense of inquisitiveness to visit the buildings and to develop an understanding of Paris as something considerably more expansive and diverse than the familiar, historic city centre."

"Also, to get a sense of what was socially at issue in the work of design for many architects of the period, to achieve architectures that proposed new ways of living and occupying the city," the author continued.

Brutalist Paris is the first book published by Blue Crow Media, which had previously only published city maps and guides.

Read on for the author's picks of seven Parisian brutalist buildings featured in the book:

UNESCO Conference Hall by Marcel Breuer, Pier-Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss (1958)

"The Conference Hall is an important building symbolically and technically in the early phase of Parisian brutalism, and a good example of the collaborative projects between international and French architects for new institutions of the post-war period.

"The structure for the Conference Hall was built from in-situ, formwork concrete and bears the marks of its shuttering. Nervi – an engineer – employed a single, corrugated or folded-plate, concrete shell, which allowed for the fusion of structure into the building envelope as a single entity.

"As Marcel Breuer put it, 'not only bones, but bones, muscles and skin combined.'"

Telecommunications Building by Pierre Vivien (1970)

"An unexpected brutalist objet trouvé (found object) of western Paris, the Telecommunications Building is important within our array of buildings for its singularity as a form.

"Built by the architect responsible for the post-war reconstruction of Boulogne-sur-Mer, it is employed as a Telecommunications Building but is more productively engaged with as a scale prototype (1:10) for a unit of utopian urbanism."

The Administrative Centre of Pantin by Jacques Kalisz and Jean Perrottet (1973)

"Kalisz's Administrative Centre of Pantin, now the National Centre of Dance, has been, since the outset of our project, one of our benchmark projects of Parisian brutalism.

"The original programme of the building amounted to an immensely ambitious centralisation of the administrative departments of Pantin. By 1997 the building had been returned to the state, after a period of gradual abandonment by the municipality.

"The repurposing of the building as the National Centre of Dance was completed by Antoinette Robain and Claire Guieysse in 2004, one of the very successful examples of the adaptive re-use of a brutalist building in Paris."

Les Choux de Créteil by Gérard Grandval (1974)

"Les Choux buildings are a brutalist social media favourite. Their promiscuous relationship with the camera lens undoubtedly derives from the combination of the volumetric generosity of the balconies and their seemingly endless repetition as mass-produced elements – a genuinely spectacular combination of industrial production with organic form.

"The name Les Choux derives from land use. Grandval recounts that there were no historical references within the original site, only the cabbage stalks of a flat agricultural landscape – there was a large Sauerkraut factory, the Choucrouterie Benoist, nearby."

Jeanne Hachette Complex by Jean Renaudie and Renée Gailhoustet (1975)

"This urban project in Ivry-sur-Seine is distinct from many of the other peripheral urban scale developments in that it involved the redevelopment of an existing town centre, rather than establishing of a new one.

"The Jean Hachette phase embodies the core aim of Renaudie's oblique, 'combinatory' urbanism as a vehement rejection of standardised architecture and the separation of city functions in the urban zoning of the older mode of functionalist modernism.

"It combines apartments, offices and commercial zones in an intense medium-rise urbanism and remains one of the most radical architectural achievements of the 20th Century."

Les Damiers by Michel Folliasson, Jacques Binoux, Abro and Henri Kandjian (1976)

"This was a very ambitious housing project of its time that involved the clearance of old housing stock in the working-class area of Courbevoie, creating generous apartments and commercial zones in a stepped arrangement of terracing.

"Despite its own monumentality, it is now dwarfed by the commercial and financial tower blocks of La Defense, and currently undergoing a slow process of decanting and demolition.

"Its demise is largely a result of inflated land values in this area of Paris. What is also being erased here is a distinct period environment of public art of the decorated facade and public furniture."

Cité Rateau by Jean Renaudie and Atelier Renaudie (1984)

"This is a remarkable housing development in north Paris, but an example of a brutalist architecture that has endured very poor practices of maintenance and alteration. It was designed by Jean Renaudie and realised by Atelier Renaudie, which was established by his son, Serge, after Jean's death in 1981.

"It possessed a remarkable ground plane of complex circulatory and public spaces, but a planned integration of work and living spaces was never completed by the commissioning client.

"These images are from 2018, but in returning to the project in 2022, we discovered Cité Rateau transformed by an obtrusive regime of gated access, which now prevents the porosity of circulation from the street previously enjoyed and destroys the basis of its radical, communal, spatial philosophy."

The photography is by Nigel Green.

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A DJ booth, a gym bench and a giant sofa with an integrated iPad holder feature in this collection of collectible denim-clad furniture that designer Harry Nuriev is exhibiting at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris.

Taking over the gallery's entire ground floor, the Denim exhibition reinvents the iconic American fabric by applying it to unexpected everyday items.

"Denim has been adopted by everyone from miners and cowboys to Hollywood celebrities over the past two centuries," said Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

"[It] is a fabric closely related to the concept of the American dream, and Nuriev explores this symbolism in his ultra-contemporary series."

The modular collection goes beyond the bounds of furniture to include homeware and gym equipment, spanning everything from wall-hung storage pockets to denim-sheathed dumbbells.

In this way, Nuriev aimed to illustrate how our post-pandemic homes are increasingly serving functions beyond just providing us with places to sleep.

"As our life has changed so much in the past years, we've started spending more time at home, on our sofas," Nuriev told Dezeen. "Instead of fighting this fact, I decided to embrace it."

This idea is perhaps most clearly illustrated in the Denim sofa, which resembles a cross between a huge mattress and a conversation pit.

Its exaggerated dimensions allow for the addition of tables, shelving and bright-pink monitor stands for holding everything from iPads to TVs.

"I wanted the sofa to become a place in and of itself — one where you can eat, relax, work, sleep," Nuriev said.

"In the same way that you layer your jeans, T-shirts and jackets in the order you want, I want my furniture to adapt and shape itself according to the user's wishes."

Within the gallery, these pieces are displayed in various configurations to suggest a whole apartment, complete with a modular vanity, DJ booth and a grand dining table with 12 cubes for seats.

"I think my favourite piece is probably the DJ booth because it brings people together, not just in a party context but as a meeting space," Nuriev said. "And the vanity, too."

The exhibition follows Nuriev's previous experiments in merging fashion and furniture, which saw him stuff a transparent vinyl sofa with Balenciaga clothing and upholster a virtual sofa in neon-green Nike jackets.

"It's part of my philosophy of transformism – bringing materials from other contexts, such as fashion, in order to dress a space like I would myself," the designer said.

Based between Paris and New York, Nuriev is the founder of design practice Crosby Studios and Denim is his first solo show since being represented by Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

The photography is by Benjamin Baccarani.

Denim is on display at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris from 4 March to 13 May 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Japanese fashion brand Anrealage has presented a colour-changing collection at Paris Fashion Week that was activated by suspended moving UV lights.

The Autumn Winter 2023 presentation took place at Théâtre de la Madeleine in central Paris and saw models walk on stage wearing 1950s-inspired shapes and silhouettes that first appeared in crisp, all-white fabrics.

A procession of models assigned in pairs entered and exited the theatre stage-cum-runway and presented what the audience began to assume was an all-white collection.

As the fourth set of models came onto the stage, they were joined by two light strips that slowly lowered from the ceiling in front of them.

A beam of UV light began sweeping up and down the length of their bodies to reveal brightly coloured and boldly patterned finishes across the formerly all-white, now colourful looks.

This colour-changing technique was achieved by constructing garments using photochromic fabrics and materials that change colour when exposed to sunlight and proximity of UV rays.

"With a collection blending classic 50s-inspired shapes and futuristic materials that change color when exposed to natural sunlight, Anrealage expands its portfolio of experimental photochromic materials produced in-house, adding faux fur, velvet, lace, knit, jacquard and satin," explained Anrealage in its show notes.

After around three minutes, the garments returned to their original colour, once the photochromatic areas were no longer exposed to UV rays.

The colours that appear on the garments will constantly shift and evolve, as the weather and shifting seasons affect the intensity of the sunlight and UV rays, explained the brand.

"As the intensity of natural sunlight is ever-changing, the colors are constantly shifting," it said.

"Pristine white looks... shift into another tonal range, thanks to photosensitive colors that are designed to evolve through the days and seasons, coexisting with nature and the environment."

The collection included satin dresses with oversized crochet collars, faux fur garments and cocoon-shaped coats constructed with no front or back, that transformed to reveal colourful patterns in checkerboard, plaid and polka dots.

Anrealage is a Japanese fashion brand that was founded by Kunihiko Morinaga. Morinaga graduated from Waseda University, Faculty of Social Sciences before starting Anrealage in 2003.

Last year, Coperni debuted its Spring Summer 2023 collection, which saw it collaborate with Fabrican to spray a liquid fibre dress onto the body of Bella Hadid.

Dior also presented its Autumn Winter 2023 collection during Paris Fashion Week, which incorporated a 24-metre-long installation by artist Joana Vasconcelos that was made from fabrics and textiles from the collection.

The photography is by Koji Hirano.

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Design studio Atelieramo has completed a retro interior for a Chinese restaurant in Paris, featuring celadon-green walls and curvaceous wooden booths modelled on those found in Hong Kong diners from the 1970s.

Architect Tala Gharagozlou and designer Virginie de Graveron oversaw the interior concept for Bao Express, a restaurant near Bastille in the 11th arrondissement that serves dim sum and bao buns.

Housed in a former button factory, the 500-square-metre space is divided into three areas: a bakery, a diner and a basement bar.

Atelieramo set out to create a series of distinct yet connected spaces that evoke the architecture and pop culture of 1970s Hong Kong – in particular its greasy spoon cafes, locally known as cha chaan tengs.

"We reinterpreted snippets of that vibrant Hong Kong urban atmosphere with its coloured pavings, pastel colours, neon lights and dense mix of patterns and motifs," said the studio.

"The aim was not to create a decor but rather, with a playful nod to these references, create a new atmosphere distinct to Bao's new space."

The adaptation of the existing abandoned building involved significant alterations to the floor plates and structure, along with the addition of a new staircase and circulation.

From the street, customers enter a small bakery and cafe serving sweet and savoury snacks to eat in or take away. What appears as a simple neighbourhood cafe conceals the presence of the larger dining areas, which are set back in the building's plan.

The kitchens are visible from the street and guests walk past colourful crates of raw produce before passing through a metal curtain to reach the main Bao Express diner.

The long dining space features cosy booths with sinuous wooden frames. The pastel-green walls are contrasted with bespoke bright-red sconces and simple mosaic panels that echo the materials of the central bar.

Towards the rear of the building is a larger dining area topped with an expansive skylight. This bright and airy space is filled with plants that create the feeling of dining in a winter garden.

Exposed masonry walls painted in celadon-green form the basis for a playful colour palette featuring contrasting peach and pink elements as seen in the glossy tabletops.

The studio's eclectic use of colour and pattern extends to the geometric tiled floors and punchy black-and-white stripes that are painted on the walls of the staircase leading down to the basement bar Underpool.

This bar area features a hammered-metal ceiling installation by French artist SupaKitch, with a rippled surface that reflects the blue-green interior and creates the impression of looking up at an upside-down swimming pool.

Bao Express is part of a family of eateries in Paris owned by restaurateurs Céline Chung and Billy Pham. Atelieramo was responsible for designing several of the duo's restaurants, each of which has a unique character inspired by different aspects of Chinese culture.

Another eatery informed by traditional cha chaan tengs is The Astor restaurant in Hong Kong's Eaton hotel, designed by New York studio AvroKO, which mixes elements of the city's diners and street food stalls with nods to the arthouse films of Wong Kar-Wai.

The photography is by Carole Cheung unless otherwise stated.

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French interior designer Marion Mailaender has completed a seafood bar in Paris named Citrons et Huîtres, which features oyster-shaped door handles and a stainless steel counter informed by fishmongers.

Mailaender, who specialises in creating spaces "with a great sense of humour", designed the bar to resemble an elevated market stall, where guests can dine inside or take away platters of oysters and shellfish.

Citrons et Huîtres has a raw steel facade informed by the storefronts of local fishmongers, which have floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto the streets of Paris.

Guests enter the bar through a door with a bronze handle shaped like an oyster shell, while a matching neon sign is fixed on the facade above the bar's name.

Inside, the space has a vaulted ceiling that reaches more than four and a half metres in height, which is painted blue together with the walls to create the impression of "diving into an amazing aquarium", the owners said.

The walls are decorated with prints by Mailaender's husband, the artist Thomas Mailaender, who used a cyanotype printing process dating back to 1842 to produce ethereal blue photographs of coastal scenes.

Countertops are rendered in stainless steel and finished with a "pearly sheen", while coral-coloured stools line the bar.

The bar serves local French oysters from Brittany, presented on stainless steel trays that complement the interior.

"Like a market stall with its stainless steel seafood counter, Citrons et Huîtres invites guests to savour the most incredible oysters while sipping on a glass of white," the bar's owners explained.

The name Citrons et Huîtres was chosen to reference a still-life by French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who once had his studio in the same building that now houses the oyster bar.

"At the height of his glory in 1900, Renoir created Citrons et Huîtres, a piece of art that celebrates the most beautiful shellfish, classified as a national heritage of French art," said the owners.

Other oyster bars with interiors informed by the food on offer include Vancouver's ShuckShuck, which is traversed by a curving concrete counter, and Watchman's in Atlanta with its "spare nautical" interiors.

The photography is by Thomas Tissandier.

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Bubblegum-pink walls, floors and furniture create unconventional spaces for displaying art at this gallery in Paris designed by local studio Golem.

Headed by architect and artist Ariel Claudet, the practice was invited to design the interior for the Superzoom art gallery, which is located in the historic Le Marais district.

The gallery comprises three spaces arranged in an unusual order, with the gallery director's office at the entrance, a white-cube gallery space in the centre and an accessible storage space at the rear.

"We flipped upside-down the classic and elitist sequence of an art gallery, offering visitors a new pleasure-driven experience and the gallery managers three spatial tools for a large range of curatorial approaches," explained Claudet.

Superzoom's signature colour pink was used as the basis for the design, reflecting the vibrancy of the local nightlife and techno scene where the gallery mingles with artists and collectors, according to Claudet.

An integrated sound system hooked up to a vinyl record player provides a soundtrack of electronic music to enhance this connection.

By placing the director's bright-pink office at the front, Golem aimed to create an entrance that is warmer and more inviting than a typical white gallery space.

The "pink den" contains a built-in bench for visitors and a fake grass carpet that contributes to the warm, tonal aesthetic.

Visitors can continue through into a large and versatile white-walled gallery. This display area remains connected to the main spatial concept thanks to the pink openings on either side.

The final space within the gallery is a storage area with walls painted the same shade of lively pink. In a conventional gallery setting, this space would be hidden away. But here, it is open and accessible to visitors.

Each of the spaces in Superzoom's gallery can be used for exhibiting work, either independently or together.

For example, Golem suggested the white cube could be used for a solo show while other artists' work is presented in the director's office and storage space.

All of the furniture and the pink wall separating the white cube from the director's office are mobile and can be removed to create a larger space for exhibitions or parties.

Golem designed the baby pink table featured in the director's office as an emblem of the gallery that can be taken to art fairs or used for client dinners.

Claudet founded Golem in 2021 after working as an architect for practices including Rem Koolhaas's Rotterdam-based firm OMA.

Other all-pink interiors published on Dezeen include a fur-covered Balenciaga store in London and the Minimal Fantasy holiday apartment in Madrid.

The photography is by Cyrille Lallement.

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French practice Régis Roudil used adobe and timber to construct this nursery in the grounds of the historic Palais de l'Alma in Paris.

Occupying the garden to the rear of the 19th-century national palace, formerly the stables of Napoleon III and now presidential offices, the 24-child nursery opens out onto a quiet urban garden surrounded by historic frontages.

"Previously housed in an older, ill-adapted building on the rue de l'Elysée, [the nursery's] new position provides it with a genuine place of serenity," explained the studio.

"One of the challenges of this project was to carefully integrate [the nursery] into this exceptional urban fabric in a way that respected the existing built heritage."

The narrow, single-storey building extends the width of the garden, anchored by two solid adobe forms at either end that were connected by an exposed timber structure.

Inside, the central space contains a large, open classroom organised around a central bathroom block and bookended by two crib areas, illuminated by skylights in a raised, gently sweeping section of the metal roof.

Beneath the timber beams of the roof structure, the nursery is fitted with bespoke timber furniture, allowing the space to be flexible and easily reconfigured if necessary.

At either end, the more private adobe structures contain an office and storage, separated from the central classroom by entrance spaces containing lockers and seating.

Framed by timber columns, a series of large, sliding glass doors in the classroom open out onto a play and seating area, separated from the palace gardens by a low fence of freestanding wooden planks.

"The notion of courtyard and introverted space is evoked..on the north side, the children's garden is placed in direct contact with the garden of the Palais to offer users the enjoyment of a visual escape towards nature," explained the studio.

"As this place is sensitive, owing to its purpose and its function, it has no direct views onto or from the public space...the garden appears as a bucolic. green lung in this stone context."

On the opposite side of the building, a pathway has been created between the palace walls and the nursery's southern elevation, creating a route all the way around the building overlooked by windows.

Other nursery projects recently featured on Dezeen include the MS Kindergarten in Japan by Hibinosekkei, designed to help children feel closer to nature, and a minimal, timber extension to a kindergarten in Austria by Bernado Bader Architekten.

The photography is by Florent Michel.

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The latest edition of our weekly Dezeen Debate newsletter features a boulder-like cabin in France by architecture studio Bureau. Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.

Architecture studio Bureau has used a rough concrete finish to disguise a small wooden cabin in France as a boulder.

Named Thérèse, the structure is distinguishable only by a porthole-style window and is located in the rural grounds of contemporary art space Bermuda outside the town of Sergy.

Some readers were impressed by the project, with one praising it as a "pleasant, playful experimental departure from the usual boxes", while another described its interior as "claustrophobic".

Other stories in this week's newsletter include an elongated metal Quonset hut designed by architecture studio Undecorated, an exclusive interview with Harley Davidson's CEO about the brand's plans to become all-electric and news of the world's first magnetised fusion power plant, which is set to be built in the UK.

Dezeen Debate

Dezeen Debate is a curated newsletter sent every Thursday containing highlights from Dezeen. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Debate or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to Dezeen Agenda, which is sent every Tuesday and contains a selection of the most important news highlights from the week, as well as Dezeen Daily, our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours.

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Architecture studio Bureau has used a rough concrete finish to disguise this small wooden cabin in France as a boulder, distinguishable only by a porthole-style window.

Named Thérèse, the structure is located in the rural grounds of contemporary art space Bermuda outside the town of Sergy.

Bureau, formerly known as Bureau A, conceived the project as a companion piece to its 2014 project Antoine – a cabin in the Swiss Alps that was also disguised as a boulder.

Both projects pay tribute to the work of Swiss writer Chales-Ferdinand Ramuz, whose novel Derborence tells the story of a shepherd named Antoine who becomes trapped under rocks following a landslide, shortly after his marriage to Thérèse.

"Thérèse was thought and built along the same lines as Antoine, creating interconnected dependencies of art and other travelling communities," said Bureau.

"Habitation is political here, as the two shelters are nowhere near commercial or speculative routes or agendas," it continued. "They offer a place to many outside any financial or economic considerations."

Nestled in a wooded area close to France's border with Switzerland, all that gives away the presence of the cabin is a single, large porthole-style window.

Underneath Thérèse's rough concrete exterior is a pyramidal timber structure, sitting atop light foundations that give it the potential to be relocated in future.

Inside, the cabin provides enough space for a single person to live comfortably, with room for a portable wood-burning stove, a table with benches and niches for storage.

Beneath the openable porthole window is a bench for viewing the surrounding landscape, alongside a ladder that leads up to a small mezzanine sleeping area.

Exposed timber panels line the entirety of Thérèse's interior and have also been used to construct the furniture, chosen to provide a warm contrast to the rocky exterior.

Bureau is an architecture, design and research studio led by architects Daniel Zamarbide, Carine Pimenta and Galliane Zamarbide, with offices in Geneva and Lisbon.

As well as the previously completed cabin Antoine, the studio's other projects include an inflatable PVC nightclub in Geneva that was designed to host the annual party of the Federation of Swiss Architects.

The photography is by Dylan Perrenoud.

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Weathered walls and concrete floors feature in this design gallery that creative collective The Guild of Saint Luke and architecture firm Studio ECOA have set up inside a former factory in Paris.

Spread across one storey and two mezzanines, GSL Gallery provides a mixture of studio and exhibition space for the group of architects, artists and artisans that make up The Guild of Saint Luke.

The gallery occupies a disused factory in Pantin, a neighbourhood in northeastern Paris with a growing arts and culture scene.

In recent years, the building operated as a classic car garage but was purchased by art dealer and gallerist Hadrien de Montferrand during the pandemic with the aim of transforming the site into a gallery.

De Montferrand enlisted locally based Studio ECOA to carry out all the necessary architectural changes and asked The Guild of Saint Luke (GSL) to steer the building's design and become its first tenant.

"We were charmed by the space and found the patina and raw walls to be punk and accidentally on-point," GSL's creative director John Whelan told Dezeen.

"Working in close collaboration with Studio ECOA, we proposed a project that retained all of the rawness of the spaces with very minimal design interventions," he continued.

"We felt that it would be criminal to interfere with the existing mood, which is melancholic and eerily beautiful."

Studio ECOA restored the building's facade and aluminium roof, as well as preserving its original concrete flooring.

Boxy storage units were built on either side of the front door to form a corridor-like entrance to the ground floor, where white panelling was added across the lower half of the patchy, time-worn walls to emulate the look of a typical gallery.

This ground-floor space will be used to display a changing roster of avant-garde installations, which GSL hopes to finance by using the gallery's workspaces to produce more commercial projects for design brands.

"Commercial endeavours will help to fund more proactive 'passion projects', where we will exhibit GSL's own designs along with designers and artists that we admire," Whelan said.

"Our chief motivation is creative freedom, as we hope to produce installations that do not necessarily adhere to a commercial brief."

The building's two existing mezzanines were cut back to create a central atrium, which draws natural light into the gallery's interior.

The lower mezzanine now houses a hybrid live-work space where GSL members or visiting artists can stay the night.

This space is centred by a large Donald Judd-style wooden table and also accommodates a bed, kitchenette and a bathroom concealed within a mirrored volume.

Extra exhibition space is provided on the secondary mezzanine that sits beneath the building's roof, directly under a series of expansive skylights.

Prior to now, GSL has largely specialised in hospitality interiors – restoring historic brasseries across Paris and devising opulent restaurants such as Nolinski near the Musée du Louvre and Maison Francois in London.

"We hope that the gallery will be an extension of the aesthetic that we are trying to develop, embracing new ideas but never abandoning the pursuit of beauty," Whelan explained.

"It feels like a good time to do so, as Covid has cleared and a mood of optimism in design has emerged. This bracing, minimal space feels almost like a clean slate and invites a multitude of possibilities."

Other recent additions to Paris's cultural landscape include a major extension of the Musée Albert Kahn by Kengo Kuma and Associates, which made room for a historic collection of 72,000 photographs.

Elsewhere in the French capital, Bruno Gaudin Architectes just completed a 15-year renovation of the National Library of France, incorporating a number of new circulation routes and public spaces.

The photography is by Oskar Proctor. 

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Celine creative director Hedi Slimane channelled "French elegance" when designing the latest Celine boutique in central Paris, which features expanses of brass and marble as well as Slimane-designed furniture.

Located on Paris' Rue Saint-Honoré, known for its luxury shopping, the store sits within a 19th-century Haussmann building and connects to a Celine Haute Parfumerie store that was opened in 2019 and references old art deco perfumeries.

Set over two floors, the 137-square-metre store is dedicated to the brand's leather goods, accessories and fine jewellery. Its interior was designed by Celine's creative director, Slimane, who has helmed the fashion house since 2018.

The Rue Saint Honoré store continues Slimane's vision for Celine's global store interior identity, which the brand explained recalls a vintage spirit and ideas of French elegance – much like its recently opened Bond Street store.

"Conceived as a timeless setting, the architecture of the boutique gives a sense of intimacy, precisely recalling old art deco perfumers' designs," said Celine.

"The ground floor, dedicated to leather goods, fine jewellery and women's accessories, is structured around the ideas of French elegance and 'vintage' spirit."

Slimane also referenced French modernism through the choice of materials and furniture for the store.

In a nod to the neighbouring perfume store, whose walls were clad in sheets of imposing black and white marble, identical sheets of antique marble were used for the floors of the accessories and jewellery store.

A jewel-like, golden brass, semi-helicoidal staircase tops the white-veined marble floor and leads visitors up to a mezzanine level and Parisian-style salon used to display artisanal bags from Celine's Haute Maroquinerie collection.

The upper level of the store is host to an antique marble fireplace, zigzagging walls of mirrored panels and wooden furniture wrapped in leather and shaggy fur designed by Slimane.

Oxidised metal panels clad the walls of the ground floor between backlit, ribbed glass louvres, while vitrine-style shelving and cabinetry recall opulent modernist interiors.

Art pieces selected from the Celine Art Project are displayed throughout the store, including a totem by Ian LC Swordy, a painting by Will Boone and a suspended glass and golden brass mobile by Virginia Overton that was personally commissioned by Slimane.

Earlier in December, Slimane showcased his 17th collection for Celine which saw the creative director return to Los Angeles to present his Autumn Winter 2023 womenswear show at the Wiltern Theatre – an art deco landmark built in 1931.

Following Slimane's appointment as Celine's creative director, he began carrying out renovations of Celine stores worldwide developing signature design codes for the brand's store interiors.

The photography is courtesy of Celine.

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French practice Bruno Gaudin Architectes has completed a 15-year project to renovate and open up the historic rue de Richelieu site of the National Library of France in Paris, incorporating new public routes and spaces.

Completed in the late 19th century by architect Henri Labrouste, the library is considered a masterpiece of the Beaux Arts style, with vast, skylit reading rooms framed by slender steel columns and highly decorative arches.

Subject to piecemeal renovations in the 1950s, by the end of the 20th century the library had become largely obsolete, with its major collections moved to the library's François-Mitterand site, completed by Dominique Perrault in 1995.

Following an extensive overhaul, the rue de Richelieu site now houses reading rooms for the National Library of France alongside the Library of the National Institute for Art History and the Library of the École Nationale des Chartes.

"After 15 years of work, we have returned a building that has been profoundly transformed to meet the contemporary challenges of welcoming the public, opening it up to the city and sharing and exchanging with the younger generations," said Bruno Gaudin Architectes.

"Yesterday, closed in on itself, the large, magnificent, worn, fragmented, dark and dilapidated treasure chest has now been given a new identity, full of light," the practice said.

In order to keep the library open, work was split into two phases, with the first phase of the project completed in 2016 and focusing on reconfiguring the circulation in the front of the building along rue Richelieu.

Continuing this strategy, the recently completed second phase has created an entirely new entrance and landscaped courtyard along the rue Vivienne, transforming what were previously the rear facades of the building into a new, open frontage.

"The design of the new entrance, with its planted threshold open to the city, reflects the institution's desire to invite everyone to discover its world, both a researching library and a museum," explained the practice.

The library's two entrances create an east-west axis centred around the library's great hall, where the contemporary renewal is signalled by the replacing of the main staircase with a large aluminium-clad spiral stair.

To the northeast, the Oval Room contains the library's only freely accessible reading room, which has been updated with new shelving and mirrored light fittings informed by its curved shape that reflect the surrounding book stacks.

Due to its status as a heritage site, the richly decorated Labrouste Room to the west was subject to a more conventional restoration project completed by the chief architect of Historic Monuments, Jean-François Lagneau.

The adjacent central bookstack space in the southeastern corner of the site had been subject to many historical transformations, extended by Michel Roux-Spritz in the mid-20th century to add a new basement and upper spaces.

While this space was not protected as a historic monument, Bruno Gaudin Architectes chose to make a feature of its layered history, stripping it back to create a large reading room linked by steel staircases and walkways.

"The work on the bookstack storage areas provided an opportunity to underscore the reinterpretation and transformation of a major historic space on the site," said the practice.

"The desire to highlight the bookstack storage area's history coupled with the use of a contemporary architectural vocabulary…the project and its tools reveal the poetics of the place," it continued.

On the first floor, the east and west of the site have been connected by a new "gallery of glass", a glazed corridor with a glass floor offering views out across the roof and leading to a new museum space and the department of coins, medals and antiques.

"The glass gallery offers a view to the roof and the sky, with a surprising view of the domes of the Labrouste hall," said the practice.

"The translucent glass floors allow light to penetrate downward, accentuating the beautiful verticality of the staircase's rotunda," it continued.

Behind the scenes, the back-of-house areas include newly created and restored archival storage areas, as well as large, airy staff spaces in the library's attic.

Previous projects by Bruno Gaudin Architectes include a library building for Paris Nanterre university which is clad in thin, grey bricks and features an irregularly colonnaded "wind tower".

Another recent library renovation took place in London, where Studio Weave added a wood-lined community space to an east London library.

The photography is by Takuji Shimmura unless stated otherwise.

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Danish architecture practice 3XN has completed a blocky office building and hotel in the suburbs of Paris, with "distinct but complementary" faceted checkerboard facades of bronze-coloured and reflective aluminium.

The first project completed in France by 3XN, the InDéfense office and Hôtel OKKO stand side-by-side between a railway and road in the Les Groues district of Nanterre, overlooking the La Défense business district.

Connected along one of their edges to form a long section of street front, the two buildings were designed with a similar formal and material language, intended to create a strong visual symbol for the busy district.

“As the first shape you encounter when arriving from La Défense, this building had to be eye-catching and dynamic,” said 3XN founding partner Kim Herforth Nielsen.

“The faceted facade and shifting volumes make it a standout in the busy district. The concept – two distinct but complementary designs – is unique in the area,” he continued.

Where the two buildings meet, a sheltered cut-out beneath the office building connects the front and rear of the site, with a black spiral staircase rising up into the building.

While the hotel is organised in an L-shaped form that turns the street corner, the office is more elongated, split into several block-like forms that have been "pushed and pulled" to create a feeling of depth as well as small terraces for the upper levels.

"Where Hôtel OKKO, clad in semi-reflective aluminium panels, remains an unbroken mass, the InDéfense office building is split and shifted into smaller masses, each pushed in or extruded to open the long and narrow site to its surroundings," explained the practice.

"The reflective facade of the Hôtel OKKO sticks out of the context and gives the program its own identity, while the distinctive copper-coloured facade of the InDéfense building brings warmth and atmosphere in the neighbourhood," it continued.

Inside, the office is organised around a central glazed atrium, with a restaurant at street level and a large spiral staircase connecting each floor with shared landings designed to encourage social interaction between workspaces.

"The visual transparency of the open atrium spaces allows for easy visual access across the building, facilitating knowledge sharing," said the practice.

"Visible from the exterior on the north facade, the spiral staircase that links the floors echoes its exterior twin and highlights the complementary architectural nature of the project," it continued.

The hotel contains 184 rooms over nine floors, with an additional public restaurant on the ground floor and shared amenities including a large lounge for guests on the first floor, with interior design by Studio Catoir.

Other projects recently completed by 3XN include a timber campus for a university in Switzerland designed in collaboration with Itten+Brechbühl, and a brick-clad office building in Stockholm that links to a renovated 19th-century building.

The photography is by Jared Chulski.

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