With the Latapie house (1993 in
Floirac), Lacaton & Vassal applied greenhouse technologies to create a private winter garden that expanded the living space of a house at relatively low cost. The house is an example of their use of inexpensive building techniques from industry or agriculture. Indeed, greenhouses or winter gardens would become a recurring feature of their projects. Lacaton states: "From very early on, we studied the greenhouses of botanic gardens with their impressive fragile plants, the beautiful light and transparency, and ability to simply transform the outdoor climate. It's an atmosphere and a feeling, and we were interested in bringing that delicacy to architecture." in
Mulhouse. The Cité Manifest was an ambitious project involving several well known architectural firms and marking the 150th anniversary of the construction of the Cité Muller, the first workers' housing estate in France. Lacaton & Vassal's objective for this project was to produce quality housing (they delivered 14 low income apartments) which, at equal cost, would be much larger than the apartments typically offered in social housing. An analysis conducted well after the 2005 delivery of the project shows that 10 of the 14 apartments had surface areas that were 50 per cent larger than was typical for low income houses with the same number of rooms. They also provided improved floor plans and amenities (large open-plan volumes, winter gardens, customizable facilities). This project was awarded the national label ‘Remarkable Contemporary Architecture’ in July 2015. Lacaton & Vassal began design work on the Architecture School of Nantes (''L’école nationale supérieure d'architecture de Nantes''), a project that was completed in 2009. Here, the areas dedicated to the functions of the school (classrooms, administration, etc.) are juxtaposed with 5,500 square meters of floor space whose functions are not predetermined—they can be redeployed, according to the needs of the moment. giving directly onto the ring road in northern Paris, is a low income housing development built in the 1960s. Lacaton & Vassal, working with Frédéric Druot, completed renovation of the building in 2010. Without moving the occupants from the building, the architects added space to all the apartments of the complex by grafting on to the structure a series of balconies and winter gardens. In addition to improving luminosity and thermal performance, the surface area of the building went from 8,900 square meters to 12,460 square meters. In November 2011, the project received the most prestigious French architectural award, the
Equerre d'argent. The FRAC Grand Large is a regional museum of contemporary art. Lacaton & Vassal were asked in 2013 to install the museum in a large boathouse in the port of Dunkirk. Their approach to this project was to preserve the original building in its entirety and to build a twin building that houses the museum. The original building is now available to be used either in conjunction with the museum or for other public purposes. (a modern art museum in western Paris). In two phases (2003 and 2014), they rehabilitated 14,000 square meters of usable space, essentially by eliminating partitions and false ceilings. The renovation improves the luminosity and the flow through the space, while also revealing the
béton brut (unfinished concrete) of the original 1937 construction. == More recognition ==