New modes of practice

AP: Nowadays, many young French architecture firms are seeking to invent new ways of making and thinking about architecture. Some of them come together—whether to form partnerships or simply to exchange ideas and reflect on their methods and approaches. Incubators—mostly linked to architecture schools, such as SANA at ENSA Clermont-Ferrand—along with smaller initiatives, provide visibility and opportunities for collaboration across France. 

Sharing knowledge and technical references can help them work on large projects, even if they are not large agencies. For instance, you may know a site well but lack experience designing a health centre, so you reach out to colleagues and collaborate. Projects today are often conceived by four, six, or even eight hands, bringing a richness that did not exist before. 

Another major change is in organisational structures. Large, highly specialised agencies used to dominate the scene and set the standards. Young architects are moving away from that model. Today, there are many possible ways to create a practice—different legal frameworks, different types of associations—each offering more or less freedom in how you add collaborators or partners. This flexibility makes it more stimulating to work on projects of your own choosing, rather than simply helping in a large office. In this sense, legal structure becomes not just an administrative framework, but a strategic and cultural tool that shapes their professional identity, collaborations, and modes of production. But it also allows the agency to adapt to changing economic conditions and to its own architectural ambitions.

Structural and geographical freedom

AP: FMAU was founded about 20 years ago by Frédéric Martinet. In its early years, he ran the practice independently, developing small projects alongside his job at another architecture office. Over time, the practice expanded and relocated to La Rochelle. From the start, the idea was to find a smoother way of practicing architecture. The legal status was changed to an SAS (Société par Actions Simplifiée), which allows people to join or leave the agency quite easily. It’s not about growing for the sake of growing, but about doing architecture we enjoy, working on projects we care about. If one day we want to take on larger projects, we can associate with more people. The structure adapts to that. When I became an associate, the process was very simple, which confirmed that this flexibility really works. 

Alongside numerical flexibility in the structure of partnership, we are developing a geographically flexible mode of practice. Frédéric is originally from the Corrèze region, and the agency’s earliest projects were located there. Recently, for economic considerations and project-related opportunities, we’ve partly returned to that area. This shift came from the realisation that it had become harder for us to develop ambitious projects in La Rochelle. Construction costs increased, and it was difficult to assemble teams of craftspeople willing to engage in a broader design approach. The practice doesn’t have to revolve entirely around one location just because that’s where the office is registered. It can exist partly here, partly there. 

The relatively small size of the practice can be both a limitation and an advantage. On one hand, it brings a degree of vulnerability. Political and economic factors can delay projects or construction phases, creating activity gaps that are sometimes difficult to anticipate. In that sense, small-scale practice requires constant adaptation and careful balance. On the other hand, this scale allows us to remain flexible and avoid a common issue in larger agencies: taking on projects to sustain a weighty organisational structure. Being smaller makes it easier to adjust financially and to preserve a certain degree of freedom in choosing commissions. We try to maintain that freedom so we can be proud of every project we take on.

Domestic experiments

AP: Private houses are a major part of the agency’s work. It began with our first realised project: Maison de Madame, built in 2008 in Sarlat-la-Canéda. Often, when an agency builds its first house, it creates visibility and momentum. People start to understand what you can do, and other projects follow. That was the case for us, and later came other houses. The relatively short project timelines and the direct relationship with the client and contractors enable us to test new materials, new techniques, new ways of building, and new organisational approaches.

In many ways, you could tell the agency’s story simply by looking at the houses. There are quite a few of them. Some are personal projects. They function as laboratories—like Saint-Claude in 2020, a self-initiated renovation. These self-built or self-commissioned projects are especially important because they allow you to test ideas directly. You are both the client and the architect. You control the budget, the ideas, and the space. If you want to try something, even if it might fail, you can. That freedom is incredibly valuable early in a practice and allows you to confront your ideas with reality.

It’s a rare opportunity to experiment, learn, and grow. Young architects often build parts of their projects themselves—partly for economic reasons, but also to gain a deeper understanding of materials and building processes. Such hands-on experience changes how you approach future projects. Living in a space one has designed and partly built creates a lasting awareness of construction constraints, spatial qualities, and everyday use. Far from being isolated exercises, these personal projects are moments where architectural thinking crystallises most freely. You’re not constrained by a client, only by context: budget, climate, territory, economy. Those aren’t limitations—they’re part of the project.

Testing for innovation

AP: What’s interesting is how certain domestic projects can open up pathways toward larger-scale work. Le Roc, for example, eventually led to the construction of Maison Borréze, a 14-room hotel and restaurant located nearby. More than a decade later, ideas first explored in a private house expanded into a hospitality project—not as a direct transposition, but as a continuation and transformation of earlier research. You can still recognise references from the early house in the hotel, just at a different scale. These earlier projects can also serve as references that reassure professional clients: they demonstrate how specific ideas have already been tested, refined, and built. The intention is never to replicate a project, but rather to extend a line of thinking. For example, Immeuble Porcelaine can be linked to Maison de Madame, just as Delabarre relates in some ways to Bella Vita and Maisons à Patios to Maison Cachée. 

For our studio, small-scale commissions have always been a kind of experimental site. We use these projects to test new materials, new techniques, new ways of building, and new organisations. If it works, we apply it to larger ones. These projects function as research and development platforms. Rather than simply responding to a brief, we use it to generate new architectural solutions that can later be deployed at a larger scale.

FM: In this sense, smaller projects are not isolated exercises but strategic investments. They allow us to refine ideas, experiment with typologies, and develop technical or material innovations that strengthen our capacity to deliver ambitious, larger projects. At FMAU, we aim to create the commission rather than passively respond to it. This proactive position—common in fields such as technology and innovation—is a key driver of our practice: developing what does not yet exist, and then scaling it up.

Geographical rooms

FM: When we take on a project, the practice aims to carry it through from beginning to end without compromising its core ideas due to uncontrolled costs. If preserving that freedom requires us to build beyond La Rochelle, we see it not as a constraint, but as an opportunity. Changing regions can even be stimulating: it allows us to test ideas more freely, to implement sketches that have been in our minds, and to invent new ways of practising architecture.

AP: Geographical conditions are present in all our thinking—how a room relates to its environment, how spaces connect, how light, wind, and materials interact—whether it’s a house, a housing unit, or a hotel, geography is never a backdrop; it is an active component of the project. You don’t build the same way in Paris, in La Rochelle, or Île de Ré. 

FM: This is where the notion of the geographical room becomes fundamental. Even when certain projects can be understood as “scale-ups” of earlier experiments, what remains constant is the attention given to the room as a spatial and environmental unit. A room is never abstract: it is defined by orientation, climate, proximity, materiality, and context. Each project is therefore composed of rooms that are both spatial and territorial—embedded in a specific geography.

AP: All of this feeds into how we think about architecture. When you discover new technologies, networks, or materials, it’s not only about the material itself—it’s about how you use it in the project, how you combine it with other materials, how it shapes the atmosphere of a room, how you create an overall material language. In this sense, even projects that appear more singular—such as Fleming—remain connected to this underlying approach. While it may not show direct formal or contextual continuity with other works, it still reflects a fundamental concern: conceiving the plan as a composition of distinct rooms, each defined by its spatial logic and its relationship to its environment.

Learning from the process

AP: Experimentation can’t be self-referential. It’s not about assembling a project by picking and recombining elements from previous ones. That’s not the point. It’s more about using this information almost unconsciously. You don’t think, let’s reuse this. You draw something and realise you’ve already done it, you know how it works, how it is built, how it ages, so you can apply it differently, reinterpret it, adjust it, or push it further. On the former website, there was a sentence that summarised this approach—tied to the idea of geometrical rigour and the agency’s production: every line on a plan or sketch has a cost. Building a project means constantly dealing with what you don’t yet know.

FM: Our international experiences have deeply shaped this learning process. Working in Spain, for example, on Plaza del Carmen, conceived as a large urban and climatic “room,” as well as in Brazil or San Sebastián, has broadened our understanding of public space, climate, and construction cultures. These contexts continuously inform the way we think about architecture, not only formally, but in terms of process and adaptation.

One of FMAU’s strengths is that we never do the same project twice. Each commission is an opportunity to question our methods and renew our thinking. Repetition can reassure clients; experimentation requires trust. But for us, innovation is not a stylistic gesture—it is a working principle. Each project becomes a terrain for exploration, whether conceptual, geographical, or economic. 

AP: Because we’re still a relatively compact structure—yet one that has delivered more than €56 million in built work—we handle projects from A to Z. We sketch them, prepare the administrative documents for the city, follow construction, and write our own technical descriptions. We have to know each project deeply. That’s how we grow: the more projects we do, the more we understand how things age over time, how details are applied, and what problems might appear during construction. 

Approaching projects in a comprehensive way is essential. Every team member carries projects from start to finish. Because each of us works on different projects, we all develop different backgrounds, and then we share that knowledge. This gives us a global understanding of architecture. When we design something new, this experience is already embedded in our thinking. All of this knowledge sits in our heads when we start a new project. That’s what allows us to be more precise—and to introduce new ideas into the practice with a clearer sense of their real impact.

FM: Looking forward, growth is not a question of remaining small or becoming large. It is about maintaining this intensity of involvement and this research capacity. Expanding the team, structuring new competencies, or taking on more complex programs are all possibilities—as long as they allow us to continue creating ambitious, thoughtful, and forward-looking architecture.

The thesaurus: A living archive

AP: When redesigning our website two years ago, we created an interactive page that organises the agency’s production not by project chronology, but by themes, architectural elements, materials, regions, and recurring spatial questions. It is called thesaurus and functions as a cross-referenced index of the work, allowing visitors to navigate through fragments rather than finished objects.

The thesaurus was built around two main ideas. The first comes from the fact that we do many projects for private clients and investors. During an initial meeting, you talk about form, materiality, details—different elements of the project—and you often say, “We’ve done something like this before, we can show you.” But then you realise the images are buried somewhere: a project folder, ten subfolders, hundreds of photos. You know you have a reference, but you can’t find it. So the idea was to already have this tool built into the website. When we’re meeting a client—or even speaking on the phone—we can say, “Go to the thesaurus, look under fireplaces.” From there, you can see similar categories, related projects, and then go directly to the full project. It makes everything much more accessible, searchable, and immediately operational. 

The goal isn’t to self-reference or reuse old ideas mechanically. We don’t take elements from past projects and assemble them into new ones. But sometimes you face a problem and think, “We dealt with something similar before—how did we solve it?” Then you can search how a detail performed, how a material aged, what proved effective or problematic. So the thesaurus became a shared tool: for clients, for collaborators, for us, as a kind of internal archive and part of an ongoing design process.

More broadly, the website is the entry point for people who don’t know the agency. So we wanted something that reflects the way we think: more intuitive, non-linear, and open. You can discover a project by a window, a stair, a door, wood, tiles—even by region—and move fluidly from one project to another. Instead of entering each project linearly—plans, main photo, scroll, information—you can approach the work through details, materials, or fragments. It becomes a more playful way of discovering the agency’s production, through fragments rather than fixed narratives.   

FM: The visual and conceptual development of the website, carried out with Antoine Espinasseau, fully embraces this hybrid position. He translated this dual culture into a digital framework that combines rigour and accessibility, system and spontaneity. The thesaurus is therefore not just a technical interface, but a reflection of how we understand architecture itself: precise yet open, informed yet accessible, structured yet alive.

This approach reflects a deeper cultural position within FMAU. Our work deliberately occupies a space between learned architectural culture and popular culture. It is neither purely academic nor aligned with lifestyle aesthetics. This in-between position can sometimes unsettle architectural media: not trendy enough for lifestyle magazines, not doctrinal enough for strictly corporate architectural reviews. Yet this balance is central to our identity. We do not produce self-referential objects; we construct carefully crafted moments of everyday life.