babin+renaud architects

Eric Babin and Jean-François Renaud are calmly following a singular pathway, delivering rigorous and engaged products freed from the tyranny of fashion. They founded their agency nearly twenty years ago after winning a European-wide competition that gave them the chance to deliver a hundred-unit housing project in Rheims. Since then they have developed an architectural style that is as grounded in context as it is abstract and theoretical. Holding dear to the concept that a building should fit integrally into its setting and perfecting new architectural types derived from analyzing each program, Babin + Renaud carry out projects of scale with highly varied remits, e.g. housing, of course, in complex social fabrics in the near outskirts of Paris (Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen), at symbolically significant sites such as Paris’ Les Batignolles or redeveloped sites like the Porte de Montmartre. They also tackle mixed projects, office buildings or extensive public facilities like the Quinconces cultural center that the agency recently delivered in Le Mans. Now ensconced in the heart of Paris’ 11th arrondissement, the agency employs some twenty collaborators and has projects throughout France. For the past several years Éric Babin and Jean-François Renaud have also been teaching, initially in Lille, Marseilles and Nantes, now in Rouen and Paris’ Belleville respectively. Their work has garnered several prizes: a nomination for the Mies Van der Rohe Prize, several international awards (The Plan Award, Wan Awards, Architizer, etc.), and in 2015 they received the Équerre d’Argent in the Habitat category.