AIR

Paris-based AIR (Architectures Ingénieries Recherches) was founded in 2000 with the following credo: 'In order to seize the political, societal and aesthetic potentialities of today, the architect must be free from dependence on outside experts, narrowly specialized in the various technical aspects of the architectural project.'

Cyrille Hanappe is both an engineer (Ecole Centrale Nantes) and an architect (Ecole d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville), and has worked in various offices – Architecture Studio, Manuelle Gautrand, Antoine Stinco, Du Besset & Lyon. Olivier Leclercq is an architect who early on trained in bioclimatic architecture (Ecole d'Architecture Saint-Luc, Tournai). In AIR they have combined their specific individual skills in order to readdress the critical issues of the day – not just the economy of a building project, the process of its construction, but above all its environmental performance.