Odile Decq: The Latest Architecture and News

Odile Decq was born in 1955 in Laval, France and studied at École Régionale d'Architecture in Rennes, Brittany. She graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure D'architecture in Paris-La Villette in 1978 and received her diploma from the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 1979. Decq set up her practice in Paris the same year and soon met Benoît Cornette who was studying medicine at the time but switched to architecture. By 1985 he received his architecture degree and the couple renamed their firm into ODBC. In 1996, ODBC won the Golden Lion in Venice for their drawings, selected out of a pool of invited emerging voices that included Zaha Hadid, Enric Miralles, and Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio. That was the beginning of the computer drawings, expressing movement, ambiguities, layering, and overall new dynamics that characterize Decq’s liberated forms and spaces.

+ 49

Odile Decq has unveiled new images of the design for her first new residential building and luxury skyscraper in Barcelona, Spain. Called Antares, the project will be sited along the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to the architecture, Odile also designed the interiors. Antares was made to be a unique addition to the Barcelona skyline by taking the form of a distinctive architectural tower.

+ 10

RIBA announced the 2020 RIBA International Prize jury and stated that it will be led by French architect and urban planner Odile Decq with the participation of Es Devlin, Jeanne Gang, Rossana Hu, and Gustavo Utrabo.

The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the launch of the RIBA International Awards 2020 to recognize architecture outside of the United Kingdom. Now open for entries, the awards are open to any qualified architect in the world for a building outside of the UK, of any size and budget. The biennial awards celebrate buildings that exemplify design innovation, embrace sustainable technologies and deliver meaningful social impact.

Past, Present, Future is an interview project by Itinerant Office, asking acclaimed architects to share their perspectives on the constantly evolving world of architecture. Each interview is split into three video segments: Past, Present, and Future, in which interviewees discuss their thoughts and experiences of architecture through each of those lenses. The first episode of the project featured 11 architects from Italy and the Netherlands and Episode II is comprised of interviews with 13 architects from Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium.

In the latest installment of PLANE—SITE’s short video series Time-Space-Existence, French architect Odile Decq gives this advice to young designers: be bold. “If you want to build and create the new century, you have to have people who have people who have specific personalities. I love when people express themselves strongly and very clearly.”

+ 17

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has selected four architects from around the globe to receive 2018 Honorary Fellowships. This year’s Honorary Fellows inductees demonstrate the diverse ways in which architects contribute exemplary designs to the profession that have a positive impact on society.

The architects receiving the honor are French architect Odile Decq, Burkina Faso native, Diébédo Francis Kéré, and American architects William J. Stanley III and John Sorrenti.

More about the Honorary Fellows after the break.

Odile Decq has won the 2016 Jane Drew Prize as part of the Architectural Review's (AR) annual Women in Architecture Awards. Co-founder of Studio Odile Decq, the French architect was awarded for being a "a creative powerhouse, spirited breaker of rules and advocate of equality." Her diverse portfolio ranges from art galleries and museums, to social housing and infrastructure. She is best known for the Cargo incubator building in Paris and the Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark Museum in Nanjing, China.

Designed by Odile Decq and Benoit Cornette, the BPO Building in Montgermont, France is now being threatened by a demolition permit. Inaugurated in 1990 and having won no less than 12 awards in its lifetime - including a Golden Lion at the 1996 Venice Biennale - the building has been widely lauded for its technical innovations, including a double-glazed suspended façade and panoramic elevators. It has appeared as the focus of theses internationally, and is featured at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine and Palais de Chaillot, illustrating its pivotal role in architectural growth. It was one of the first buildings in the 90s to demonstrate an acute response to the quality of workplaces, and stands as an example of conscious, thoughtful design.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we asked the Brazilian non-profit group Arquitetas Invisíveis to share with us a part of their work, which identifies women in architecture and urbanism. They kindly shared with us a list of 48 important women architects, divided into seven categories: pioneers, “in the shadows,” architecture, landscape architecture, social architecture, urbanism and sustainable architecture. We will be sharing this list over the course of the week.

Today we present women architects who stand out for the quality of their work. 

+ 27

Odile Decq has announced that she is launching a new kind of architecture school based upon the idea of "Confluence," an educational framework that "erases the predefined limits of the traditional academic structures for the benefit of the collaboration of talents, thoughts and disciplines."

The Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, which will be located in in Lyon, France, will bring together "Architects, critics, artists, thinkers, philosophers, film-makers, scientists, engineers and manufacturers" in order to develop an architecture that develops ideas unconstrained by "stylistic prejudice or ideology." More on this new initiative, after the break.

Videos

In a profession all-too-often associated with and dominated by men, women have begun to carve a space for themselves in the architecture world - but still few are recognized as they deserve. 

So Alice Shure and Janice Stanton, the founders of Amici Productions LLC, began work on a new documentary, Making Space: a visual register for future generations of architects that will document what is changing in architecture today and how these changes are affecting women. 

After interviewing over 30 architects, Shure and Stanton selected five women, five "rising stars" to hi-light. The documentary will show their day-to-day lives as well as tell the stories of how they achieved success. 

Thanks to a recent Kickstarter campaign, this project will soon be a reality. But to get your sneak peek into these five female pioneers, read on after the break.