The architecture and design firm Duffau &Associés and the Ultra-Ordinaire research studio are designing around the idea of Matière commune. D&A operates within the boundaries of the fields of architecture and design through the use of Matière commune. U-O produces, concretises and shapes Matière commune through a wide network of multidisciplinary partners.
Founders
Pierre Duffau founded his first agency and network of collaborators in 1994. The style of his projects, even if it has to adapt to the constraints of the context and the client, is characterised by great purity, by a tension between various components, without being minimalist. Focusing on the interior space, the work on flat typologies is a central point of the project.
The relationship between the interior and exterior is shaped by the context of the site on which the building takes shape. The impact of the materials and architectural elements that make up the projects is considered through a biosourced material library and in relation to the development of local know-how.
Pierre Duffau was president of the Maison de l'architecture Occitanie, Midi-Pyrénées from 2008 to 2012.
After training at the Domus Academy in 1994, Nathalie Bruyère set up POOL products with Lorenz Wiegand between Berlin and Toulouse in 1998. POOL products develops simple, everyday objects that are ethically responsible and rational, while making full use of unique production systems. The result of these processes is maximum flexibility.
The projects respond to specific needs at a given moment, offering the user the flexibility and freedom to direct use according to their choices; they are intimately linked to questions of space.
Nathalie Bruyère is a professor at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et du Design in Toulouse, specialising in space and object design in relation to ecosystems. She is currently setting up the research project (do [think] do) and Global Tools.
Matière commune
In the light of new ecological awareness, we need to confront this historical upheaval that is testing the limits of natural resources. Projecting architecture and design means drawing, producing and then building. Through drawing, the idea (the concept) becomes legible. Through production, the shape of the material is organised. Through construction, space is shaped.
La Matière commune is based on the ability to make architectural elements that enable us to modify, maintain and sustain our spaces. It pushes back the limits of purely extractive production and develops new points of value for a territory. The design gives instructions to machines and hands, allowing users to interact with the process. It can evolve dynamically and is no longer limited to simple execution.
—— Repairing the world reenchanting places by drawing up the stages of design, maintenance, transformation and evolutivity to envisage renovation.
—— Classifying spaces at different levels of spatial interaction, such as private and public function, and shared use. Furniture is open to a variety of forms, so that it can be linked to changing lifestyles.
—— Assembling and adapting in response to change.
—— Outlining an initial, modular flexibility that offers places the prospect of being redeveloped.
—— Giving elasticity to a building to allow for additions, withdrawals or ramifications for shared spaces. Making possible transformations dynamic and visible.