The hotel project is a small city project, a human settlement where habitat, commerce, education, politics, culture is combined.

LAN strike back by dramatically cutting through the façade, providing alleyway-like access to the back courtyard and the building as such through a rift.

The purpose of this architecture is to construct a new urban space combining the private and public, the vertical and horizontal. The building’s envelope is conceived as an apparatus for the city’s constant visual reinvention.

LAN Architecture* imagined the building as a sort of line that simultaneously follows the skyline and the ground.

The agency’s name echoes the partners’ intentions directly. LAN is precisely the acronym of Local Architecture Network and it refers to the local design network applied and developed through specific field skills, experts and authors attending on the projects.

LAN Architecture adapted and created a contemporary version of a working class terrace house typology. This was the starting point of their strategy. Their proposal aims to integrate issues concerning single family homes, cars, the definition and hierarchical tiering of public and common spaces, as well as environmental quality to produce new sustainable urban models.

In a district already occupied by high-rise buildings, there was never question of merely building ano¬ther tower, but rather of fashioning a new urban space, combining pri¬vate habitat and public circulation, verticality and horizontality.

To give the impression of a lightweight building in movement, the architects proposed incorporating stainless steel studs into the earth-coloured concrete cladding. This solution had the effect of blurring the building’s limits and reflecting the surrounding colours and changing seasons.

After the publication of “You Can Be Young and an Architect” telling about the 5 first years of the agency, LAN Architecture invites you to discover “Welcome to Saint Mesmes”, a book about the complete construction process of the Marchesini French headquarters in Saint-Mesmes, France.

A new skin for an old body: Children play in a sort of cocoon, rich in light variations, that rises up over the two levels.

“This account reveals which is never mentioned in books on architecture: the errors to avoid, and a few handy hints to young architects who, like us, have decided to launch themselves into the grownup world of architecture. It is a sort of illustrated diary detailing the various episodes of our journey as well as those of certain agencies who have accompanied us. It reveals to what point the profession, its tools and technologies are undergoing change, and explains the vital role played by communication in the growth of an agency…”

A jutting platform, a floating sheet of concrete.