Jean Julien-Laferrière
Jean Julien Laferriere is the master of balancing mixed materials with wood. Pairing his innovate design eye with inspiration from nature, he creates a signature look sure to blow you away. He created an architecture company called Architecture et Bois (Architecture and Wood in English) that has two locations in the biggest cities in France, one in Lyon and one in Paris. They service all of France and also have projects in Morocco, Romania and Switzerland! Laferriere has a signature style that uses mainly wood and open flowing space plans to really bridge the gap between inside and the great outdoors. His use of glass and edgy angles to manipulate light showcases the natural surroundings and will turn your ordinary home into the perfect relaxing get away. Read more quotes to find out just what inspires theses great designs, and the full interview on how this business has evolved into the success it is today.
Contact Architecture & Bois
“If you’re sick, go to a doctor and if he can do anything for you, he lives in a wooden house”
–Scandinavian proverb
What is your design style?
Creating a space that is open but gives you the feeling of intimacy.
How has music made you a better architect?
Music can be simple or very complex just like homes, everything has to be in proportion and have harmony. My grandma once said to me after I played her the piece over and over, “I don’t mind because every note is beautiful on its own. It’s like going outside to see the same flowers every day, they are still beautiful.”
How has traveling to America inspired you?
When you’re young sometimes you just have to jump, first I was shy to leave but traveling changed my life. I had this feeling of freedom there, it was unforgettable.
Where do you gain inspiration?
Traveling is the best inspiration, it keeps me creative but my design plan is always inspired by the external features of a site.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Respect and really understand what is important to your client and at the same time listen to yourself. The one without the other doesn’t function.
How do you master mixed materials?
When you mix materials you have to understand what each material will express.
How was your business evolved?
The evolution comes from listening to yourself.
Become inspired
Read the full interview below!
How do you create your best work?
Once you completely understand the site, then your head will work without the hand. The better houses are the ones you fall in love with at first sight.
Theory VS Technical
Find a good balance. I think it is important to wait some time before studying technical skills. It is important to not become a slave to one unique great architect so much so that you are keeping your own art in a jail. You have to be confident in your own work and really express yourself. Don’t lose your imagination, free it.
If your walls could talk, what would they say?
I want people to be living happily with a connection to nature, for a home to offer the sensations of liberty and intimacy.
Dive into the full interview!
♦What is your design style? The architects I work with have said it best, that I create a space that is open but gives the feeling of intimacy. Something I recognize about myself, is how I try to erase the barrier between inside and outside, I do this with glass and angles which adds a lot of light and depth to my projects. I love the element of surprise and I love to create a story, like a storyboard, with my designs. My clients or friends have often said that I have a signature style, even if the homes I am designing are very different from each other, this is a pleasure to hear and my greatest compliment.
– I think this is great, and how you eliminate barriers and use incomplete walls, this gives such a flow to the house and really helps from an interior design point of view.
♦Where do you gain inspiration for your signature style? It is maybe a balance between an exigence of proportions and a will of freedom. My mother has a lot of taste and my father is an architect, I often would watch my father working. My parents took our family to visit castles, like the “Chateaux de la Loire”. I remember things from there, I was struck for proportions. I also gained inspiration and a taste of freedom (even in the architecture) from my travel throughout America, traveling is the best inspiration. My assistants have traveled and it has really opened their eyes and this helps keep me creative in the office. My design plan is always influenced by the site and inspired by the external features. I want to find harmony with the inside and outside while still having a very free plan.
♦How do you create your best work? My way of working is often in a rush but I stay very isolated so I can concentrate. Once you completely understand the site, then your head will work without the hand. I have to be convinced that the design tells a story, if I am not convinced I can’t present the project. The better houses are the ones who make you feel like love at first sight.
♦How did you know you wanted to be an architect? As a child I didn’t imagine myself as an architect, even at the end of high school I didn’t know what I wanted to do, that’s the truth. At first I was dedicating myself to music, the classical guitar. Maybe it’s all connected. Just like music, everything has to be in proportion and there has to be a harmony between the inside and the outside. Music can be really simple or very complex just like homes. My grandma once said to me after I played her the same piece over and over, “I don’t mind because every note is beautiful on its own. It’s like going outside to see the same flowers every day, they are still beautiful.” It was a great way to express myself. After an accident that kept me from playing music my father then said, study architecture it could give you a lot of opportunities. Which has proven to be true, I have friends who studied architecture and they are now set designers or in administrative positions or in interior design. People who study architecture, we are very open minded.
♦Tell me more about schooling in Paris how did that really open doors for you? A teacher that really influenced me was André Ménard. In Paris at that time there were 9 architect schools. The one I choose, by chance, was influenced by the “Beaux Arts”. We worked in a workshop, we each had one teacher for the head of the class and you would stay with the same workshop from first year to last. Working as a beginner, you worked closely with the older students four or five years older than you. You work multiple years with the same people so you become more confident in your work. In my case it was very nice. I like this as a model for school, I believe we were the only school that inherited this model from the “Beaux Arts” School. Other schools used a more traditional model but, you don’t get hands on experience that way.
♦Is this were you met your friend, who now works in your Paris location? Oui, we have been friends ever since. We have a second location in Paris, I was born there and moved here 10 years ago. I still go back and forth.
♦If you could go back and talk to yourself as a student what would you say? To respect and really try to understand what is important to your client and at the same time listen to yourself. The one without the other doesn’t function. I appreciate when a client loves the first original design sketch and says “Wow, I couldn’t imagine something like that but I love it.” That is a good moment for me.
♦How did you take the leap into the real world after school? I studied there 3 years and, then I went to America in 1986 for a break. I thought I was leaving for 2 weeks and stayed 9 months. I met, worked a little bit and stayed several months with cousins of mine who are now quite famous architects and urban planners, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany and they have been incredibly kind to me. They own a company called DPZ that has really become a huge success. I also worked in Miami at 2 other firms before crossing the country with a young French architect Remy Camoin and our beloved Pontiac “Catalina”. People were nice and really appreciated meeting French people so that was an amazing experience. My cousins are also great teachers and lecturers giving conferences I had the opportunity of attending classes at the University of Miami and, even if I am not a great reader, thank’s to our conversations, their conferences and their home library, they helped me open my eyes and mind when there was existing in my opinion a lack of teaching theory my architecture school in Paris.
♦What is more important Theory VS Technical? You have to find a good balance, don’t worry about becoming too technical too soon because you lose your imagination. I have seen it, people who work as technicians before studying architecture, have great difficulties for most of them to free their imagination. I think it is important to wait some time before studying technical skills. Don’t become so technical, that you are keeping your own art in a jail. I also think it is important of course to read about architecture but not become a slave to one unique great architect you would admire. You have to be confident in your own work and really express yourself.
♦Where else in America did you get to visit when you came back? Afterwards, In 1992 the AIA (American Institute of Architecture) gave me a grant, The Delano Grant, so that I could go back and spend another six months in America. I am now a member of the board and once a year we send over a French architect to America. When you’re young sometimes you just have to jump. At first I was shy to leave but it changed my life. When I was there, I crossed all of America from the south to California. I loved it all and it would be too hard to elect a “top 5”! I really loved driving up the east coast. I love big spaces but also like being in my car. Maybe it exists a kind of similarity in my architecture in the way that I like in the same time express freedom with open spaces and intimacy and privacy. People often say, they know America because they went to LA or NYC but no you have to go in between, I really like mid-size towns and open lands. I also picked up my brother Hubert in Quebec and then we went to Vancouver, with a car. Sometimes I would drive 200-400 km out of the way just to see a building. I would sleep in my car sometimes. I had this feeling of freedom there, it was unforgettable. My brother is now the mayor of the 9th district in Lyon and he also works with the international sector.
♦How do you think your business has evolved? The evolution comes from listening to yourself. If I could choose, I would like to have more liberty – like when I design for my own home. It was a longer process but I wish I could change my home every 2 years.
♦How did you find your team? I like working with young architects and giving them their chance, it is all about if we have a connection. My team now, they are international. One is from Ukraine and one was an intern and then he traveled in America and came back to work for us. Because they have traveled they are open minded. I think that’s really what is missing in many people, they keep me creative when I get stuck. I also work with subcontractors who worked with me in the past from time to time.
♦What would be your favorite project? Difficult to choose one. One of my favorites is the house I called “open arms”. The home surrounds a pond. A good sign is when you finish that first sketch and the client is immediately convinced. Then you have to make sure the finished product is close to the first sketch.
♦You do a fantastic job of balancing mixed materials, I think this helps define your signature look- is it difficult to choose materials? The main material I like working with is wood. Building a wooden house in 2000 changed my way of designing, after that I couldn’t see any good building with cement blocks. When you mix materials you have to see what each material will express.
♦If you could partner with any one architect who would it be? The Japanese they have a really inventive style.
♦If your walls could talk, what would they say? I want people to be living happily with a connection to nature, I don’t want people to hide themselves behind the walls in their house that would rather at the same time offer the sensations of liberty and intimacy. Maybe like the chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes designed by the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, the master of organic architecture I admire. Lloyd Wright created a glass chapel surrounded by nature and found the way of creating a great architecture without walls.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Recent Comments