White building, Lyon II, ZAC Confluence

There is a sense of calm about the second instalment of Lyon Confluences. We wanted to strike the right note. Our project is designed in response to the surrounding landscape. That is why there are so many different facets to it. It’s urban and domestic, has mineral and plant elements, and contains both shops and housing (public and private) in its high-profile position on a major square. You show off all the sequences and undermine the building’s effect as a screen. It was really a time and space analysis of how people would live in and use this space that determined the building’s shape, not the other way round. It is the product of a hybridization of the parameters of its urban context and its objectives. The building is defined by human contact and encounters. It keeps a safe distance – refined without being provocative, outstanding without being showy.