Yves Arnod and Isabel Hérault have co-founded their agency in 1991, and ever since
they have conceived and realised many buildings, the majority issued by a
public order. The agency works on very varied programs on different scales,
refuting any idea of specialization. Each time the will to escape from the already-made solutions or the
transposition of receipts leads them to propose relevant and original answers
which draw their substance from the reality of a situation. They are very
attentive at the milieu in which a
project situates itself in order to find each time the right answer to the
specificity of a context. It is a question “of revealing the forces, energies
involved rather than forcing the things” (Deleuze).
This way of thinking aims to a work starting
from the medium produced by projects very different from each other, the
recurrence being in the process rather than in the result.
The agency has many references in the cultural field, among which:
theatre (at Les 2 Alpes, delivered in 2005 or Anglet in progress), concert hall
(at Grenoble, Evreux or Brest), recording studios and rehearsal rooms
(Métaphone at Oignies, which will be delivered in 2012, Concert Hall for
electronic music in Grenoble), media library and cinemas (at Meyzieu, delivered
in 2001), museums (archaeological museum of Paladru), skating rinks and
spectacle halls (in Grenoble, delivered in 2001 and to Chalons-en-Champagne,
delivered in 2005), etc.
The agency develops along with its projects a reflection
on the sustainable development, whether required or not by the client. The data
of a situation makes it possible to develop this more or less in detail
according to the program, the site and the budget. Beyond the technical aspects
related to the energy saving or the constructive modes, the question of
interaction between architecture and nature is unceasingly put, in the projects
relate to the landscape, but also to the urban contexts, where the relation
between the man and the elements - light, sky, seasons, air… is of primary
importance.
Herault Arnod concern to respect their
engagements and had developed a working method which aims to the strict control
of the costs, schedules and the quality of the realization: their creativity
and architectural research that they follow exerts inside this framework.