Off the record: TANK
In the Proust’s short questionnaire style, AA questions architects about their profession, their projects, their vision of the future. Today, we meet the french office TANK, created by Olivier Camus et Lyderic Veauvy. Based in Lille, the architects attempt to combine environmental protection and real architectural quality.
Being an architect means…
Olivier Camus : Do not want to change the world but to do his utmost to improve it.
Lydéric Veauvy : The art to build, to create sensitive, poetic places, at service of the human beings.
My perfect order would be…
OC : The one which comes from the good client.
LV : A museum in a natural site, a house by the sea, a chalet in the mountains, a no-profit housing co-op…
What are, according to you, the new challenges of the profession ?
OC : Invent really sustainable and environmental-friendly architecture, respectful of the planet, without losing its capacity to move us and to gather.
LV : Let architecture — all of architecture, not just some exceptional projects — bring real answers to the environmental issue, and be present at all scales, while remaining a sensitive and creative act.
The advice I’d give to a young architect
OC : Be curious.
LV : To have high expectations, high morals and ethics. To trust his universe and to develop personal architecture. Fees are not negotiable, it is necessary to defend the profession from the beginning.
What I want to transmit to my co-workers
OC : Integrity and fondness for drawing.
LV : Passion, requirement, poetic and well built sensitive architecture, at the service of human beings.
The emerging architect we should follow
OC : Assemble studio
The project I would have loved signing
OC : I can’t reply to this… Too many projects come to my mind…
LV : The museum of the zinc mine by Peter Zumthor.
The other job I would have practiced
OC : Comic-strip artist.
LV : Cooker, moutain patrolman…
An inspiring place
OC : Le Huelgoat in Finistère.
LV : Les Arcs, the Cap Ferret.
A book, an object, a piece of art I particularly love
OC : Le garage hermétique of Moebius.
LV : My surfboard
