Vertical — Hybridization between nature and built

Architect Manal Rachdi was the guest of honor at the Wicona evening dedicated to his Référent Vertical network on November 6, 2019. During his conference, the founder of the OXO Architectes agency emphasized the singular approach that challenges and contributes to the success of his projects, which are often award-winning: an approach based on fundamental hybridization between nature and the built environment. We met with him a few minutes before he took the stage.

VERTICAL: You readily say that "history and origins are the anchor point of today's architecture." What do you mean by that?

Manal RACHDI: In my view, one cannot write the future without a keen understanding of the past using the means of the present. The history of places is always laden with meaning that must both be understood and articulated with the future.

When the agency takes on a project, we undertake a sensitive archaeology of the context that will help us build our thinking on how best to guide the place toward a new state.

VERTICAL: When did this approach become self-evident to you?

Manal RACHDI: From the very first projects. I need parameters in order to make decisions. When I give a conference, I need to know who I'm addressing in order to adapt my discourse. It's the same thing for a project: its context, the place and its history, will guide its language.

VERTICAL: Is that what makes you singular, your contribution to contextual architecture?

Manal RACHDI: Before being an architect, I studied biology and geology. That is perhaps when I became aware of both the infinitesimally small and the infinitely large, from the structure of the cell to plate tectonics, from the scale of detail to that of the grand landscape. For me, architecture is the link between these two dimensions. They guide me in this understanding of place which, as for any scientist, helps me define intervention strategies.

VERTICAL: Is it this training in biology and geology that gave you a taste for nature?

Manal RACHDI: It gave me above all the elements of understanding. I had a taste for nature from childhood, walking every week in a forest near my home in Rabah. The city is intermingled with it there, so the forest is very accessible. Even today, when I create architecture, I try to recreate those sensations, so that people feel good. My grandfather was a farmer and spoke to me a lot about the earth; he would tell me: "the earth gives back what you give it," so you must respect it.

VERTICAL: You say you belong to a "dematerialized and connected" generation. How do you reconcile your approach to nature with the design of smart cities and buildings?

Manal RACHDI: Every architecture carries the genes of its era, and the architecture I create today is adapted to our time. I speak of a dematerialized generation in the sense that the internet and connected life allow us to transport ourselves rapidly almost anywhere, to live multiple lives, to work where we want. Our offices – and mine in particular! – are in our smartphones. Architecture must be able to take into account from the programming stage these new ways of living, through program diversity and flexibility of building uses. As for nature, it is the most advanced technology – it took more than 4 billion years to develop and it is extremely efficient! Returning to the functional mutability of buildings, it echoes, for me, nature's capacity to adapt to situations. They must be able to self-manage by reacting in relation to their environment. We must be able to inject into them what I call "metamorphic genes" that will allow them to transform.

VERTICAL: Does the expression "green building" or "ecological" make sense to you?

Manal RACHDI: The most ecological building is the one you don't build. A new building can tend toward ecology but the carbon footprint will always be positive.

VERTICAL: Have you had the opportunity to work on renovation projects?

Manal RACHDI: The most eco-performant buildings will remain futile if the city they are inserted into does not itself tend toward eco-performance. It's like in soccer: if only one player is good, the team loses. We will lose the match if we forget to work on the existing. It is not the core of the agency's business but we do have some major rehabilitation projects underway, currently confidential. The transformation of the existing is fascinating, it's a tremendous challenge.

VERTICAL: In 2019, we celebrate the 100 years of the Bauhaus. What does it mean to you to be an avant-garde architect today?

Manal RACHDI: For me, architecture is only a continuity. Each movement responds to the problematics of its era. At the time of the Bauhaus, it was brilliant to make a very beautiful concrete slab and we didn't care about its carbon footprint or its LCA. Today, we are aware that our world is finite. To be avant-garde then, could be to return to vernacular architecture.

VERTICAL: What would be the ideal building for you?

Manal RACHDI: It would be… a chair in a forest: a 360° view, fantastic sounds, constant emotion… It's a bit what I try to recreate in my buildings. Trying to be efficient for a building, let's be honest, it's an aspiration. Nature fascinates me because it has found a balance – what we make of it is another thing. The building industry accounts for 46% of our national energy consumption and 26% of our GHG emissions. Do we want that to change? If yes, that implies a paradigm shift. We've gone off the rails, we've built haphazardly, we've invented industries that destroy our planet. We must return to noble materials, use bio-based, recyclable materials, recalibrate the software of our approach and set aside everything that is not useful to it. Our planet is our treasure, if we don't protect it, we won't be able to go further.

VERTICAL: Most of your projects have been developed in association with other architects…

Manal RACHDI: When you're a young architect, it's a necessary step to access commissions. It's also easier, on large projects, to assemble plural teams. I had great pleasure doing it with my architect friends. But I also love leading projects on my own; the agency currently has several underway. In fact, the associate, the architect, the collaborator, the client, the engineer… I consider them all as sparring partners. In the sense that an idea, a reflection, a thought must be tested, challenged to exhaustion to ensure that the building will respond to all current issues. At OXO, we explore many versions for each project, we test many options. It seems essential to us to have a holistic approach to our profession. I am not an artist, I am an architect, and I feed myself on constraints to produce architecture.

Photos: ©Jérome Bonnet - ©Franck Deletang