Paul Bernier has been practicing as an architect since 1991. He started working within Montreal agencies and elsewhere in Canada. He established his own practice in 1999.
Paul Bernier’s work is characterised by a play on space and light, and by the great care given to the choice of materials and to methods of assembly. He developed this sensitivity to architectural details, not to multiply them, but to reduce them to the bare essential and to control their execution.
‘’I am interested in an architecture that’s inventive. A floor doesn’t have to be opaque, it can allow light through, a wall doesn’t have to be fixed, and a door can be opened in a thousand different ways. I also seek to call upon the senses to enrich architectural experiences: the pleasure of feeling the inertia of a massive door, the comfort of a rounded plank of wood beneath one’s foot, the sight of an assembly that enables to understand how the loads are supported.’’
He gives great importance to the relationship with the client, to understanding whom the client is and what this person’s needs are, so that the project, though issued of a creative process will resemble the inhabitant.
He also spends a lot of time on building sites. The tight collaboration that he has always maintained with the builders is very useful to him in mastering construction techniques and pushing architectural explorations farther. He has also held the role of developer and builder.
Paul Bernier also designs furniture, and does research on architecture in parallel to his practice.