HOST (F) Alain Renk (1962)
In 1985, while still a student, Alain Renk founded the "Naço" studio with the Argentine Marcelo Joulia. The frequently published and exhibited work of this young Parisian agency (Albums de la jeune architecture, 1991) explored the intersecting paths of architecture, design, set design, and graphic design. In the autumn of 2001, Alain Renk created a new organization called HOST/R+P, as a new step in a radical questioning of the architectural profession. Within this new structure it is his intent to redefine the place and role of architecture in a general ecology of the contemporary world. Regarding this latter as a kind of complex and vaguely defined ecosystem, whose invisible topography must be grasped, he uses his projects to explore three lines of research, three specific and interdependent factors of territorial transformation: commerce (Karma-space), politics (Stealth-space) and work. In this context, architecture must come up, not with forms imitating the world's complexity, but with hybrid processes and transversal strategies which reveal its intelligibility.