Pritzker Prize 2021 winners Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are revered for their humble, exploratory take on architecture. The duo have headed Paris-based studio Lacaton & Vassal since 1987, and are critically acclaimed for their work in housing, in particular, such as their multi-family projects that display a gentle, considerate approach and sustainable architecture; they are also behind a slew of private single-family homes too. And two of these Lacaton & Vassal houses have now gone on the market in France – the 1993-built Maison Latapie in Floirac, and 1999’s Maison Floquet in Bordeaux.
Maison Latapie was among the first of just six private houses completed by the studio. Experimental and refreshing, the house ‘embodies their radically new approach to housing, based on an economy of resources pushed to the extreme', says Aurélien Vernant, director of Architecture de Collection, the real-estate specialist that is looking after the sales. Designed to be flexible, economical, and sustainable, Maison Latapie is a house that well represents Lacaton and Vassal's overall approach.
Lacaton & Vassal houses: ‘open to life’
Maison Floquet
The two architects seek to develop ‘building systems that give freedom, like in other times the Dom-Ino house or apartment buildings of Le Corbusier, the ecological houses of Frei Otto in Berlin', Vassal has said of their residential work; such elements are on display within these two homes.
Maison Floquet offers an alternative premise, being the transformation of a former cookie factory into a family home. But even with a different starting point, Lacaton & Vassal’s approach remains consistent, drawing on iconic loft spaces and reclaimed industrial sites to compose a bright home with an open, airy, light-filled central courtyard at its heart. ‘This pragmatic, ecological and inventive approach, which reinterprets “what is already there” with simplicity and finesse to maximise its uses, earned them the Equerre d'Argent award in 2011 for their rehabilitation of the Tour Bois-le-Prêtre apartment block,’ say the estate agents.
‘Good architecture is open – open to life, open to enhance the freedom of anyone, where anyone can do what they need to do,’ Lacaton said, following the pair’s 2021 Pritzker Prize win. ‘It should not be demonstrative or imposing, but it must be something familiar, useful and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it.’
These two homes certainly showcase this ethos, and are a true representation of Lacaton & Vassal's architecture of gentle dynamism and experimentation.
Maison Latapie
Maison Latapie
Maison Floquet
Maison Floquet
Maison Floquet
Maison Floquet
Maison Floquet
Maison Floquet
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