The Festival des Architectures Vives and the festival Passages Insolites from Quebec were selected by the French-Quebec permanent cooperation commission led by the French Consulate in Quebec City and the Ministry of International Relations and Francophonie from Quebec, to carry out a co-design action.

From September 8 to 16 2017, Atelier Vecteur, composed of French architects Coline Giardi, Thomas Dalby and Ugo Elzière, associated with Karole Biron and José Luis Torres, Quebec artists have had the opportunity to make an ephemeral installation as part of the Festival Passages Insolites in Quebec City.

For the year 2018, they republished the experience in Montpellier, France, this time by creating the FAV pavilion. 

Coline Giardi, Thomas Dalby, Ugo Elzière, Karole Biron et José Luis Torres

Montpellier, FRANCE/Québec City, QUÉBEC

PRISME — the FAV pavilion

To approach the problem of the smart city from a technological point of view would be pointless if we do not associate the citizens who practise it.

“Prisme” then proposes to users of the St Côme courtyard to take a new look at this urban environment through a reflection on the relationship between “inside” and “outside”, “visible” and “invisible”.

The pavilion is an invitation to stroll, mystery, play and visitor interaction. It defines a space of exchange and communication. The raw wood brings a colour, a texture and a smell impacting the whole of the court, modifying it the time of the festival to better mark the visitors and to invite them to put in scene. Convergence, interaction, encounter and play are the key words to tackle this book.

“Prism” blurs the inner/outer relationship and questions us about the issues of perception of spaces. Like an organism that believes, its forms push the limits, expanding into space and its accents of colour call the gaze into an extension of the forms in movement. The dialogue between wood and stone, their differences in mass, temperature, light, offers us a subtle exchange and induces a reflection on the notions of scale.

The architectonic space loses the privilege of containing and dominating the objects that compose it. The place is interpreted as an object and the object as a place.