LACATON & VASSAL

With this book we present in hardcover book format a new, enlarged and updated edition of 2G issue devoted to the French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal, published in 2002.



While at the beginning of their professional career they were known for their innovatory schemes in the realm of single-family housing, through their daring use of materials and technologies at odds with the traditional discipline of architectural design their work has evolved in the direction of projects of a wider scope which keep faith with their original aims. Their work is not based upon a preoccupation with form. This is not an a priori aim but the outcome of a design process nourished by issues like typological research, the maximising of built surface for a given budget, energy optimisation and adapting to the programme requested by the client. Technological innovation and materials (polycarbonate, industrial greenhouses) are used to ensure the most suitable price, one that allows the biggest possible spaces to be constructed with a forceful, modern image and no concessions to prototypical solutions. This, then, is a singular way of doing things that opens up new horizons for architectural methodology.



This book provides an overview of their work from its beginnings to as yet unseen projects, thus leading to a global vision of their career.