Urban Lab Global Cities (ULGC): Exhibition: Périphériques Architects, at La Galerie d'Architecture, Paris

3/21/2012

Exhibition: Périphériques Architects, at La Galerie d'Architecture, Paris

Before talking of an exhibition, The Architecture Post The Conversation initially scheduled this Friday 23rd has been postponed at a later date. I will talk to Liam Young and Kate Davies of Unknown Fields Division and Will Wiles of Icon Magazine on the Urban exploration in Pripyat, The Aral Sea, Baikinur, asking this: Why they think these post-industrial obsolete places need a view.

For this, I will recommand to read (if not yet) Icon Magazine issue 105 if you have an interest in landscape futures.

1200C64P10R is the title of an exhibition: Paris-based Périphériques Architects. What is the idea behind this title? The exhibition, on view through April 14 in the Parisian gallery, La Galerie d'Architecture presents 1200 candidatures (competition entries), 64 projets (projects) and 10 realisations (completions)… since 2007 as the last exhibition that La Galerie d'Architecture organized was in 2006.

1200C64P10R — Model, La Galerie d'Architecture, © Périphériques Architects.
credit photo: The Architecture Post for Urban Lab Global Cities

Difficult to say if 1200C64P10R is an exhibition or a solo show, probably in the interspace of these two formats. Maybe a sort of monograph.

1200C64P10R, Exhibition, La Galerie d'Architecture © Périphériques Architects.
Credit photo: The Architecture Post for Urban Lab Global Cities

Podcast: The Architecture Post Conversation: La Galerie d'Architecture.

Since 2006, the agency has developed and participated in a large number of competitions (1200), and exhibitions including group exhibitions (Venice Bienniale of Architecture, French Pavilion, 2008). The architects 10 have completed only ten projects, including a few in progress:

Law Court, Proposal, Limoge, France, 2011 © Périphériques Architects.
Status: Competition.

Housing, child care centers, theaters, offices, universities, clubs, shopping malls, facilities, retails. Let's enumerate a few among these 1200 competitions entries:

Media Library St Paul, proposal, Sedre, France, © Périphériques Architects.
Status: Competition.

Cour d'Appel Fort-de-France (Law court), Martinique, France, Maison des Arts et de la Culture, Beyrouth, Lebanon, Le Plan 2, Ris-Orangis, France; Pavillon de la France (French Pavilion), Expo 2010 Shanghai, China; Palais de Justice (Law court), Limoges, France, to name a few.

1200C64P10R, Exhibition, La Galerie d'Architecture © Périphériques Architects;
Credit photo: The Architecture Post for Urban Lab Global Cities

And 10 completed projects. Let's name one: The Roller Coaster 72, Nantes, completed in 2011. This just completed U-shaped housing is implanted around a south oriented central garden.

Roller Coaster 72 — Rendering, Nantes, 2011 © Périphériques Architects.
Status: just completed.
—> The building and its two sloping volume is organized around a central garden providing a relationship
between inside and outside, private and public

This appartment block consists of two responses: volume — a two-sloping volume made of cut-outs on the surface of the roof — and façade clad in lacquered steel in various colors to create pearly shaded scales and a differentiated appearance that is reinforced by the balconies.

Roller Coaster 72 — Model © Périphériques Architects.
—> To break the rigor of the façade, the architects use four types of balconies according to the size of the openings.
On the roof, six openings (this model shows only three openings) with different
sizes to provide daylight and ventilation within the building.
Note that these openings, rectangular in form, are similar to the openings on the surface of the
envelope.

The volume and the cladding are optimized in response to the site constraints: sunlight and ventilation, central garden, site, surrounding buildings.

Roller Coaster 72 — façade. Under construction, Nantes, © Périphériques Architects.
—> The color affect of the façade is created by lacquered panels in steel in different colors — blue, yellow, green, and pink — used on different parts of the envelope.
This generates an appearance that varies according to the parts of the façade.
The picture has been taken while the building was under construction. The façade
will be equipped with four types of balconies in wood or metal.

Based on a double orientation, views are established from the street through the building and from the flats to the garden and to the surroundings. The façade is equipped with four types of balconies made up in wood or metal.

Aerial view of Roller Coaster 72 — Under construction, Nantes, France © Périphériques Architects.
—> The volume is the result of a series of cut-outs generating two slopes on the roof surface.
The form of this building conforms to sunlight, the central garden, and the surrounding buildings.

Back to the exhibition. On walls a series of dioramas in color showing the evolution of the agency's projects: sketchs, models, plans. Others are models of ongoing and completed projects. In each corner, a tv screen showing once again sketches, plans and models.

1200C64P10R, Exhibition, La Galerie d'Architecture © Périphériques Architects.
Credit photo: The Architecture Post for Urban Lab Global Cities

Colourful Chairs, maybe part of the Asseoir (to sit) series, are displayed in this exhibition, too. Périphériques Architects has been designing furniture for many years responding to friends, clients' requests. For the exhibition, these chairs can be used to adapt the space to the events it will host, while contributing to the creation of the exhibition. Indeed, it will not be surprising that this exhibition will be animated by short-scaled events, until April 14th…