Françoise Raynaud: On Botanical Buildings

Join Françoise Raynaud for "Botanical Buildings," a talk on the connection between the built and natural environments.

How do we live better in the city tomorrow? Today, more than ever, buildings must reconnect with the world around them, connecting people to the living world and to themselves. To achieve this, it is necessary that they adapt to their environment and to their context, but also to available resources. We must reconsider our link to the natural environment and transform our way of thinking in order to work to create (or recreate) the conditions of life that we have destroyed for more than a century. 

Architects should be inspired by the intelligence of our natural environment. Raynaud seeks to create “tree buildings” that create ecosystems for the comfort of their inhabitants. Much like living organisms, the buildings that Raynaud imagines grow from the ground towards the light and interact with the environment. They are rooted in our cities, emerging from the landscape and forming a link between earth and sky. Her buildings employ strategies to seduce and be seen, allowing them to interact in symbiosis with their neighboring inhabitants. Raynaud believes that, like trees, buildings have a vital energy and their design should be inspired by the frugality and sobriety of the natural world, where energy is transformed or reused. This new architecture of the living makes it possible to build the city of tomorrow—a "sensitive city" with a unique vernacular.

Speakers:
Françoise Raynaud, Founding Architect, loci anima
Jonathan Thornhill, Partner Architect, loci anima New York Office

About the Speaker:
Françoise Raynaud has built and worked around the world, in locations including Japan, China, Malaysia, Korea, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States. A free-thinking architect, in 2005 Raynaud gathered an international team of designers to found firm loci anima (meaning "the soul of the space"). Since then, her firm has constantly fought against established ideas and systems. Raynaud isn’t motivated by the idea of constructing a corpus of works but by the creation of living architecture, buildings that are efficient, practical, intelligent and recyclable. Her projects demonstrate a desire to bring an end to the urban-natural dichotomy, functioning instead as landscapes for living, for inhabiting, for planting, while envisioning the world of tomorrow. Raynaud advocates for an architecture that is heavily inspired by nature in its ability to adapt, an approach heightened by her awareness of inhabiting in a finite living environment that will not be able to withstand the aggressions it has suffered forever. 

This event is offered in person; COVID-19 vaccinations and face masks are strongly encouraged for all visitors. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.