(F) "Making do to make less" shows, in the case of Roche&Sie, a desire to develop a critical experience within architecture, which produces changes in its contextual parameters. Scenarios involving hybridization, grafting, cloning and morphing have given rise to on-going transformations in architecture, with the abolition of object/subject and object/territory polarities. The activities of this agency, which is closely related to the art world, are many and varied: exhibitions, in 2000, at "Beauty" in Avignon and at the Venice Biennale, in the French and international pavilions, and organizing events and publications, and so on, all combined with an original teaching programme at the ENSBA in Paris, and at the Bartlett School in London, for François Roche. What sets this agency apart is its unfettered inventiveness. In an explicit reference to the "plugs" of Archigram cells, Roche&Sie is working on a "household office" building for the French electricity company (EDF), at La Défense, the business district just to the west of Paris. This "concept-building", which introduces a permanent renewal of energy (solar, wind power, etc.) through its reactive façade, combines living and working, rather like those many start-up ventures where people live and sleep in the office. The organic dimension of this building (hairiness and sub-cutaneous piercing) makes an ironical reference to this new way of living--a variant of triumphant capitalism.

R&Sie. D/B:L
Roche (François) (1961), Lavaux (Stéphanie) (1966), Boulin (Alexandre) (1972)
Legrand (Olivier) (1970), Desèvedavy (Gilles) (1963)
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• (Un)Plug Building & Friday's Wear 2000