Weight and Grace
« A sanctuary for artists in the heart of the city »
An architecture of tension, mirroring the artist’s relation to the world: between creative retreat and isolation, and the necessary immersion in the human community from which inspiration is drawn.
Set within a dense urban grain, Weight and Grace explores the complex cohabitation of artists in residence, visitors and exhibitors within a constrained space. The site lies in Vaulx-en-Velin, an outlying commune of the Lyon metropolitan area, in a territory at the interface between a lingering industrial fabric and recent residential developments. The plot sits slightly back from a planted pedestrian and cycle swale to the north, the outcome of an earlier urban study carried out at the start of the year.
To answer these plural aspirations, the project deploys a stratified composition that radically separates the public functions on the ground floor from the private spheres above. The architecture expresses this through a poetic duality: a massive, blind public base in brick — a symbol of enclosure and anchoring — carries a fine, delicate timber frame housing the studios and dwellings. Between these two worlds, planted terraces offer a breathing space conducive to encounter. This material tension between mass and lightness embodies the very posture of the artist — withdrawn in creative intimacy, yet a keen observer of the world from north-facing glazing onto a busy avenue. Carried down to the scale of the construction detail, the project mobilises durable, demanding materials, translating the rigour of a dual architect-engineer culture in service of a place where contemplation nourishes creation.
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Site plan of the project
The site is in Vaux-en-Velin, an outlying town of the Lyon metropolis, in a territory at the interface between a lingering industrial fabric and recent new residential developments. The plot sits slightly set back from a planted pedestrian-and-cycle swale to the north, the product of an earlier urban study carried out at the start of the year.
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Ground-floor plan
The ground floor is the massive part, with concrete walls and terracotta facing, as the plan's poché conveys. It holds the exhibition spaces, arranged around a central patio inspired by the plan of an abbey cloister. The formal parallel echoes the almost spiritual retreat of the artist in moments of pure creation.
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First-floor plan — circulation spaces
This first-floor plan shows the circulation spaces above the exhibition areas. On either side of the void marked by the cloister, two vertical circulation cores link the upper floors to the street. To the east, gardens connect the dwellings — whose stairs are visible to the south — to the studios to the north, all served by a single stair.
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Elevation of the north façade
This north elevation shows the building's main façade as seen from the planted swale to the north. It reveals the dialogue between the blind mass of the ground floor — pierced at its centre to give access to the cloister — and the lighter frame of the upper floors, which springs from ground level thanks to the glue-laminated timber columns running down the façade.
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Constructive axonometric
This constructive axonometric shows how the various façade layers are organised around a timber structure. The façades present a materiality blending the organic and the mineral: open chestnut cladding, removable zinc shutters, mixed timber-aluminium joinery and terracotta tiles.
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Plan of the duplex dwellings, level 2
This close-up shows the lower level of the duplex dwellings. At the entrance, a stair gives access to the sleeping areas above. The living room and kitchen run in sequence and open onto a loggia to the south, whose overhang limits excessive midday sun.
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Plan of the duplex dwellings, level 3
The upper level of the duplex comprises two bedrooms and a bathroom served by a single landing. The party walls between dwellings are made of a deep timber frame filled with hemp wool, maximising the use of bio-sourced materials.
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Longitudinal section through the ground-floor exhibition spaces
This section along the length of the complex clarifies the height relationships between the massive ground-floor spaces and the private spaces above. At the centre are the planters of the hanging garden, interspersed with voids that create zones of indirect sunlight for the exhibition spaces below.
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Cross-section through the artists' studios
This cross-section through the studios and the cloister opening shows the generous dimensions of the artists' studios. Roof openings combine with large north-facing glazing to provide diffuse, constant natural light. A network of adjustable shutters tunes both the sunlight and the desired degree of privacy.
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Detail section through the artists' studios
This detail section through the studios' roof shows how the construction details were conceived. The studios are generously tall thanks to their gabled roofs, which allow a mezzanine to be fitted within.
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Exterior collage — the circulation spaces and the dialogue between mass and frame
This collage clearly reads the difference in treatment between the public spaces, which occupy a massive base blind to the outside, and the dwellings and studios that unfold above. Between the two, planted terraces act as a transition — spaces suited to pausing and to encounters between the building's occupants.
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Collage — interior exhibition spaces
A view of the interior exhibition spaces, which express within the mass that is visible from outside. Solar gain is controlled between the ceiling openings fitted with broad curved brise-soleil and the arched windows opening onto the cloister. The composition anchors the building in its site and landscape context, with powerful brick walls that symbolise both enclosure and protection — an echo of the artist's inner sanctuary, where creation is born in intimacy.