Studio BLU Architecture is a practice based in Paris, with projects experience in different countries.
Founded at the end of 2021 by Elies Garnaoui, former associate of Renzo Piano, is now a growing talented team of architects, with a shared passion for well-crafted and sustainable architecture, declined in different scales, typologies and budgets, always craving for beauty.
Studio BLU offers services in Architecture and Interior design (Building), Landscape and Urban planning, to public and private clients.
Our firm is open minded, inclusive, respectful, and always careful of promoting talents.
PROCESS
Studio BLU Architecture approach is based on curiosity and creativity, always looking at the best possible solution, in a constant research for a beautiful design.
In order to achieve a full analysis and understanding, we believe on the importance of listening, to all contributions and points of view, as well on sharing ideas without preconceptions.
To get as much as possible inputs, from the very beginning till the construction phase, we’re constantly looking for a dialog and an exchange with all the parties involved in the project: client and authorities, engineers and consultants, suppliers and contractors, users.
Even if the final built project is necessarily the result of a collective work, we are aware of the great responsibility that we have, as designers, on making the overall synthesis and on finding the right solutions.
Constantly checking the assumptions made, our typical working method is a back-and-forth between hand sketches, models, 2D and 3D drawings, renderings, physical samples and mock-ups; always jumping from different scales since the beginning.
Among other digital tools, we’re also experts on Building Information Modeling (BIM).
BLU VALUES
Our values can be summarized as follows :
MORE :
+ Quality : space and light, transparency and lightness, happiness and beauty.
+ Genius Loci : attention to the specific site conditions and to the context integration.
+ Civitas : community, social justice, inclusivity, accessibility, public open areas, sharing spaces, interactive activities, connectivity, infrastructure, heritage protection.
+ Sustainability : environment special care, green areas, nature and biodiversity, water harvesting, recycling, renewable resources, local materials and production, carbon footprint control.
+ Efficiency : reduced consumptions, passive buildings.
LESS :
- Consuming : energy, water and resources consumption.
- Exploitation: soil exploitation and landscape degradation.
- Pollution : over consuming, global trades, CO2 emissions, climate change.
- Wasting
- Rising costs
- Sadness and ugliness
We strongly believe that :
It’s better to do more with less . . . than less with more
The best result can only be achieved working together with a good client . . . not just for him
The Fountainhead - with Gary Cooper (1949)
Elies Garnaoui - architect dplg, director
Filippo Bosco - architect, project leader
Naomi Lacpatia Voluer - intern
since 2022 ...
Alexandre Tran
Luise Stadler
Amyel Loy
Charles Guezet
Federico Palli
Iuliana Grigoriu
Niccolo Ciccotti
Elies Garnaoui
Born and bred in Rome, he studied architecture at the University “la Sapienza” where he graduated with honors.
Before moving to Paris in 2002, where he has been living ever since, he spent 16 months in Berlin, at Finn Geipel - LIN office. This experience had a profound influence on him.
After working for F. Soler and M. Fuksas, he joined the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in 2006, becoming soon associate. As project leader during 15 years, he worked at several international and prestigious projects, among them: a mixed-use high-rise in Brooklyn-NY, two buildings for the Columbia University new campus in NYC, the new HQ of the SGBL bank in Beirut and the “Pathé Palace” in Paris.
At the end of 2021 he left RPBW to establish the new practice Studio BLU Architecture, which he currently leads.
USUAL PARTNERS
Atelier Miething - Landscape architect
AIA Ingénierie Lyon - engineers (structure, facades, MEP, environment)
Ailleurs.studio - graphic designers (renderings)
ARUP - Lighting
Bollinger+Grohmann - engineers (structure, facades)
Collin Anderson - architect
Dionysios Tsagkaropoulos - graphic designer (renderings)
META - engineers (acoustics)
NAMIXIS (S.Hubert-Delisle) - eng. consultant (fire and safety)
PEUTZ - engineers (acoustics)
Pierre Guerin - accounting
SHA - architects (project bid and construction follow-up)
SLETEC - cost estimation and project specifications
Sergio Pauletto - architect
Stefano Privitera - Italy local architect (permit, project bid and construction follow-up)
Thibault Sanchez + Mehdi Cupaiolo - legal advisors
Yann Chaplain - model maker
Creativity can help in solving problems . . .
