Giving more than one takes is a pre­cept at the heart of the loci anima approach. Reluctant to search the soil or dis­turb exis­ting eco­sys­tems, the agency consi­ders the act of buil­ding as a res­pon­si­bi­lity. The pro­jects of loci anima are indexed on their envi­ron­men­tal value: take less space, less time, consume less mat­ter; Restore more value, more space; Be ever ligh­ter, more mobile, more durable. Dedicated to den­sity, the agency’s pro­jects give pride of place to nature and are desi­gned with their eyes rive­ted on their foot­print. A gar­den on the roof of a school in the heart of a macro-lot, a nau­ti­cal base for the America’s Cup built with the mate­rials that have ser­ved to trans­port it to the ends of the Earth, noma­dic sce­no­gra­phy for a famous brand of shoes: each pro­po­sal is in fact a solu­tion.

Buildings are demons­tra­tors of their own content, the values they defend, the uto­pias they shel­ter, the socia­bi­lity they offer. Loci anima claims this abi­lity to com­mu­ni­cate archi­tec­ture. Housing, faci­li­ties, offices, shops, com­mer­cial spaces: its pro­jects encou­rage mee­tings bet­ween users, the poro­sity bet­ween inside and out­side and send an ope­ning mes­sage beyond their pro­gram. In addi­tion to their mor­pho­logy, skin and mate­rials, this appli­ca­tion to be convin­ced is trans­la­ted into sce­no­gra­phies, paths and devices whose user comes out rein­vi­go­ra­ted, if not trans­for­med. Browsing a movie thea­ter to find a cap that fits, dis­con­nec­ting in a tee­pee in the middle of Hudson Bay to unders­tand the envi­ron­men­tal impact of sto­ring data: from smart buil­dings to com­mu­ni­ca­tive buil­dings, there is only one step.

*The archi­tec­ture of loci anima is power­fully ancho­red in the convic­tion that bet­ween mat­ter and nature there are more than hoo­ked atoms: it is a mat­ter of belon­ging to the same genus. Like spe­cies, buil­dings must adapt and react posi­ti­vely to their site, their context, but also to regu­la­tion, eco­nomy, resources avai­lable to make the most of it. Mimetic or ende­mic, tec­to­nic or helio­tro­pic, magne­tic or sym­bio­tic, each buil­ding reflects a stra­tegy of adap­ta­tion and its archi­tec­ture is an open sce­na­rio which car­ries within its seed its pos­sible trans­for­ma­tions. To evolve the typo­lo­gies, to detract the nuclei of a DNA par­ticle, to ques­tion the scales and each time to work its flexi­bi­lity are part of the approach of loci anima whose adap­ta­tion is the dri­ving force.