The work of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, which comes across as a line of thinking and research about the economics of architecture, focuses on projects that cost as little as possible, so as to be able to renew the dialogue with the developer. Mindful of the flexibility of uses and of their development by a precise installation in the surrounding environment, they make use of a wide range of techniques, often chosen from outside the usual construction arena. The house at Coutras, located in the countryside, 30 miles west of Bordeaux, is thus built on a very long, open plot of land, with a very sweeping prospect of the landscape beneath its wide skies. It is a single-storey structure, formed by two identical juxtaposed glasshouses; standard horticultural glasshouses with a metal structure and rigid, transparent cladding, incorporating all the automatic equipment required to control the temperature. The plan forms a rectangle made up of two parts: the living rooms installed in one of the glasshouses, on the west side, and, on the east side, an area under glass: the winter garden onto which the living rooms open. Outside, there is an orchard of fruit trees.	(F)
	Lacaton & Vassal Lacaton (Anne) (1955), Vassal (Jean-Philippe) (1954)
	• Maison à Coutras, près de Bordeaux réalisé 2000