“A bird’s nest for a greedy pterodactyl” is how French architect Rudy Ricciotti describes a bamboo building he has designed in Paris. The $41 million project, dubbed T8 after its plot number, will provide offices, shops, and some 40 apartments overlooking an irregular-shaped courtyard pool. Built on a concrete platform astride a railway line, the seven-story, 47,684-square-foot building will occupy a two-acre rectangular site in the up-and-coming Tolbiac Chevaleret quarter, opposite the French National Library. Images: Courtesy Rudy Ricciotti Rudy Ricciotti surrounded the exterior of the T8 apartment building in Paris with a screen of bamboo, resembling a bird’s nest.
Les Halles, known as the “stomach of Paris” during its days as the French capital’s wholesale food market and more recently an un-loved 1970s transit hub and 1980s shopping mall, is poised for a makeover. Last month the Conseil de Paris approved plans for a glowing shell-like structure, designed by architects Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti, that will contain cultural facilities. Photos: ' Arnaud Rinuccini, Courtesy Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti Berger and Anziutti’s scheme for an undulating, canopy-shaped building replaces above-ground elements of Forum des Halles, a 15-acre shopping complex that extends five levels below ground. A 10-acre rectangular
Sylvain Bigot jokes, “I’m the bridge lighting designer.” Bigot, principal of Neo Light, a firm in Joué Lès Tours, France, has illuminated the Saint Satur Viaduct and the Pont de Montrichard, for which he was awarded first prize in the 2004 Light Competition, which is overseen by the French Ministry of Culture.