The talk is the fourth chapter of a “Next Gen” concept, developed by CAFx and VELUX, where architects of younger offices each select a dogma within mainstream architecture practice and thinking that they want to challenge. This selection then motivates them to tell about why and how they are challenging the so-called dogma and why it is necessary to renew the architecture profession. Over the year, we will invite ten younger Danish and international architectural studios challenging the status quo in architecture practice and pushing the boundaries towards a more regenerative methodology.

Based in Paris and Brussels, the young agency Les Marneurs carries out projects on various scales: the project management of public spaces in Brussels, the design of a productive park in Charleroi, the creation of an agricultural park as well as the construction of market garden housing in Toulouse, the rehabilitation of several reading rooms in the Sainte-Geneviève library in Paris, the installation of stone micro-architecture in Sauliac-sur-Célé, as well as urban and landscape studies in La Rochelle, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Etretat and Toulouse. In 2022, Les Marneurs won the Palmarès des Jeunes Urbanistes, as well as the "100 who make the city" prize list. The name "les Marneurs" first embodies their meeting at the School of Architecture of the City & Territories of Paris-Est (Marne-la-Vallée). This reference also reflects their desire to anchor the project in the field, in its relationship to the ground. By associating a landscape architect and two architects, the agency relies on very varied backgrounds and experiences. Their approach integrates the issues related to climate change at all stages of the design: from the consideration of resources (soil, water, energy, living, construction methods) and risks (urban heat islands, drought, flooding, submersion navy, etc.), from the construction of a common story to the modes of management and implementation of projects.

Les Marneurs

Les Marneurs is an architecture, landscape and urban planning office co-founded in 2019 by Antonin Amiot, Geoffrey Clamour and Julien Romane. Combining a landscape designer and two architects, the office is built on experiences and backgrounds from La Rochelle, Rotterdam, Geneva and Brussels.

Since its foundation, the office, based in Paris and Brussels, explore three thematic by design and research in each of its projects: the risk, the resources and the narrative. The office's work reflects a multidisciplinary approach at various scales. Coastal issues related to the risk of marine submersion, the question of the sobriety of build resources, and climate adaptation of landscapes and environments are their favourite fields.

Among their main projects and studies in progress or already delivered: the reshape of the Lawton Collins quay in Cherbourg according with sea level rise, the renaturation of the Charente Estuary as part of the Grand Site de France operation, the Homme Sauvage climate park in Huy, and the Martinet production park in Charleroi which hosts a biomass plantation. The office is also working on the creation of hybrid and evolving public spaces, especially through several projects in Brussels:

- The garden courtyard of the Jacques Brel nursery school in Jette, which after its complete desealing will be able to accommodate water management areas, a playful path, thematic and educational gardens, and places for residents, parents and teachers to share.

- The recypark of Anderlecht which will host a public space dedicated́ to sliding and entirely designed according to water course. The future skatepark is integrated into a large garden that infiltrates water and hosts new ecosystems along the Brussels Canal.

In 2022, Les Marneurs won the Palmarès des Jeunes Urbanistes.

Water and risk

In an expand variable and unstable environment, where the population is concentrated in cities and on the coast, the question of natural risks has become unavoidable. Most of our projects deal with landscapes that are vulnerable from an unsustainable development or are in a continuous struggle against natural phenomenon. Our approach is to build projects that do not confront the risks, but rather "live with" them. Natural phenomenon (such as flooding, erosion, marine submersion, etc.) are for us essential elements of projects to be that should be integrated from the design of a habitat, a public space or a territorial strategy.

Water as a resource

Resources are becoming more and more rare and their exploitation must be done with respect for our environment. Our generation and those that follow will have to do what they can with extreme limited resources (human and material). Our projects therefore attempt to gradually integrate new tools linked to the energy transition, but also to the rediscovery of short circuits, for materials, but also for know-how. In the same way as natural risks, the question of energy - from production to consumption - can no longer be denied, especially as it is a formidable 'material' for projects, from the simple house to large territories.

Water and the territory

Taking water into account in our projects requires a change of perspective and scale in all our interventions. For each situation a multi-scale approach is developed: XL scale (territory, geomorphology); L scale (neighbourhood, environment); M scale (site); S scale (detail, management).

This new regard also makes possible to find the water cycle in a given territory, which generally corresponds to the perimeter of the catchment area. This reading of the water cycle from upstream to downstream questions then administrative limits of the territories.

‍

The event is kindly supported by L'Institut Français.

‍