Antoine Yang Piquemal Architecture Portfolio

ANTOINE YANG PIQUEMAL ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

To start

Born April 1, 1992 in Ermont (Val d’Oise) to a French father and a Chinese mother, I grew up in Qingdao, China until I was 4 years old, before moving back to France. After 11 years of living in Paris, we travelled back to Asia, in Singapore, for my father’s work. There, I developed my English and passed the Scientific Baccalaureate at the French high school after 4 years, before returning to Europe in order to begin my higher education at the University of Paris.

Éducation

2019 - Master’s degree in Architecture from École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne.

2014 - 3rd year of Bachelor as an exchange student in Lund University, Sweden.

2011 - Starting the Architecture studies at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne.

2010 - University of Pierre and Marie Curie, first year of license in PCME validated (Physics Chemistry Mechanics Electronics).

Expériences

2021 - Architect at A+T in Luxembourg. Renovation projects for city offices and housings, a highschool, and a cemetery.

2019 - Architect at Hérault Arnod for 10 months in Paris. Several competitions for offices and housings, a multimedia school, a cultural center and a sports hall.

2017 - Intern at DAN Architects in Lausanne for 3 months. Refurbishment of an old countryside house in Orbe, Switzerland.

2016 - Intern at WY-TO in Singapore for 4 months. Conception, submissions and construction site monitoring of two interior design projects for private apartments.

2016 - Inte rn at Gottlieb Paludan Architects in Copenhague for 6 months. Assistance for onging technical projects : facade of a recycling plant, and a train and bus station.

2015 - Intern at Andersen & Sigurdsson in Copenhague for 6 months. Won a competition for a fishermen and hikers house in Iceland. it since has been built.

Cemetery pp 4-7

Facades pp 8-11

Fishermen House pp 12-17

Densification pp 18-23

Rave pp 24-29

Baths pp 30-35

Library pp 36-39

Museum pp 40-45

Urban Bloc pp 46-49

CEMETERY

Chapel, columbariums, entrance and main path of a cemetery in Kopstal, Luxembourg

Architects: A+T Architecture

Located in the heart of Luxembourg in the municipality of Kopstal, this cemetery has to be partially renovated. An open chapel is added, in connection with the existing ash scattering lawn, located in the center of the place. It becomes a landmark and brings together the loved ones of the deceased

around a funeral ceremony, in an intimate and solemn space, hidden from prying eyes. The entrance to the cemetery consists of two parts; one dedicated to welcoming the family of the deceased, and the technical area, which ensures the proper functioning and maintenance of the premises.

Close to the chapel are 52 columbariums, provided for those who wish to keep the ashes. Assembled by 2 or 3, they form an alley of totems directed towards the nature.

The chapel, the columbariums and the entrance are imagined with two main materials, rammed earth and corten steel. They contrast by appearance, solidity and durability over time. Rammed earth is fragile, warm, and it expresses a mass. It constantly needs delicate and continuous craftsmanship, whereas corten steel, much more robust and resistant to corrosion, requires very little maintenance. This confrontation reminds of the fragile body, a mass that decomposes and returns to the earth, leaving only the immutable bones.

FACADES

Facade study drawings for various competitions

Housing, offices, cultural center, school and sports hall

Architects: Hérault Arnod

This fully glazed office building in Paris suburbs is characterized by a curtain wall that surrounds and covers its main facades. It is made with a succession of thin vertical aluminum slats whose lengths and widths vary in order to create a rhythm. They also provide protection from the sun light and heat, casting more or less deep shadows on the glazing in the background.

On the street side, spacious alcoves are concealed behind the curtain wall. They are distributed throughout the facade, offering outdoor spaces for the users, in addition to terraces and an accessible green rooftop.

For this mixed project competition, we designed two of the three requested buildings of the future campus: a 3D animation school and open-space offices. A student residence was designed by another office. Here are represented the main facades of the school and the offices.

Following a similar approach as the previous project, the prefabricated aluminum panel facade was superimposed with a rhythm of needles, also made in aluminum, and fixed between the protruding concrete slabs. In this case however, they all have the same dimensions, but are irregularly spaced.

This urban complex is made up of three large, distinct programs cohabiting on an empty urban plot. Social and accession housing, offices and an ecumenical cultural center all share a large common slab on the 1st floor, facilitating the management of pedestrian flows and public/private access.

Housing and offices have their facades made of concrete panels, from which the bottom of the formwork is filled with pieces of crushed local clay tiles, giving them this orange-red shaded color. As for the ecumenical cultural center, it is wrapped in a cladding of blackened wooden planks, an ancestral Japanese technique that naturally protects the wood from the weather, and which generates an interesting patina.

This 5600sqm square plan sports hall was thought from its interior program. The «useful» volume studied influenced the design process in order to achieve this particular morphology. It was mainly sculpted by the heights of the climbing walls. To support the roof, four main steel beams and load-bearing walls allow the space to be totally free of vertical structure.

The facade and curved roofs are covered with a skin of silvery zinc scales, giving the building a monolithic appearance. At every large steel beams, opaque linit glass elements cover the lattices and diffuse natural light inside the building in such a way as not to dazzle the users. It also lightens the building heavy appearance.

FISHERMEN HOUSE

An infrastructure for fishermen and hikers in Borgarfjörður eystri, Iceland 1st prize, completed and in operation

Architects: Andersen & Sigurdsson

Photograph: Christopher Lund

This small infrastructure made of concrete and wood consists of three programs. On the ground floor, a storage space and a small office allow fishermen to store and manage their goods. The second floor, connected by a direct access from the top of the hill, offers an exhibition space about the surrounding fauna and

flora for everyday visitors and hikers. The first floor inhabits a cafeteria and showers for the workers. These three floors form a cube of 10x10x10 meters inserted into the slope of the hill. Two terraces and the accessible roof top offer breathtaking views of the Icelandic landscape, the mountains and the sea.

2nd floor Rooftop

DENSIFICATION

Optimization of a residential area in Lausanne, Switzerland

Antoine Yang Piquemal, Capucine Legrand, Ricardo Aguiar, Clémence Thimonier, Théophile Legrain, Coline Kiefer

Professors: Anne Lacaton, Frédéric Druot

«What and who is already there?» - This was the workshop motto, whose work consisted in densifying and optimizing a district in the west part of Lausanne. The objective was to identify the complexity and capacity of this territory, made of different types of housing, tertiary and industrial buildings, places of worship,

commercial areas, green spaces, as well as road networks and connections. We have developed a regular and continuous frame over the entire area in question. The extrusion of this «grid» at very specific locations hence generated habitable plots, forming an accessible base on the 3rd floor from which housing towers were erected.

Housing plots and extensions

Housing towers

View on the generated 3rd floor

« Whether it is vegetation, use, view, space, soil or construction, the existing is the preliminary structure of all projects. We consider it with interest and attention, as a resource that instantly brings value to the project and with which we must work. The use, re-use, transformation, are today part of creation

and invention in architecture and urban planning. It is advisable to seek invariably in order to extend the existing situations with the most delicacy and lightness possible. Adding, sticking things together, expanding, overlapping, and stepping over the existing allow economical progress and efficiency in architecture.»

A.Lacaton et F.Druot

RAVE

A traveling device for self-managed celebrations

The popularization of alternative Techno culture has generated a dissociation between two worlds: the emergence of electronic music festivals and their spectacular infrastructures, against the perseverance of the alternative movement around the RAVE culture, a discreet and almost mystical celebration organized by collectives and independent artists.

These events hidden from the general public are turned towards an emblematic object: the Soundsystem, a stack of hand made speakers which becomes a genuine totem around which people gather. These RAVE explore the more intimate and refined character of the festive world and are often deprived of infrastructures due to their spontaneity and their limited budget.

Antoine Yang Piquemal & Basile Rapit Professors: Emmanuel Rey, Marco Bakker, Loïc Fumeaux

This lightweight device offers a method for assembling elements that is simple and accessible to everyone. Cardboard tubes, mdf knots, wooden stakes and dowels, standard ropes, tarpaulins and PVC ballast bags all form a kit. These allow to cover the essential needs for such an event, which are the transport of the equipment to the chosen site, rapid assembly and

disassembly, protection against the sun and rain as well as the necessary furniture (benches, tables and a bar). This kit is provided with a manual, offering a lexicon of flexible typologies that can be adapted to different contexts. Equipped with basic tools, a trailer and the assembly manual, fans of nomadic festivities can temporarily take over the site of their choice.

BATHS

A spiritual retreat on the EPFL campus, Switzerland

Antoine Yang Piquemal & Foucault Huard Professor: Dominique Perrault

In many religions, water plays an essential role and is synonymous of a strong symbolism, most of the time represented in rituals as transitions and purifications. On a campus like the EPFL, these notions can offer a way out of the student routine to

take the time of an introspection, in order to find peace and serenity. The proximity of the Lac Léman and the mountains generates a focus point, allowing a «reconnection» with nature by offering an exclusive contemplation setting.

Exterior axonometry

Interior axonometry

In terms of program, this notion of transition and purification translates into an underground circuit of showers and saunas, leading to the outdoor baths.

Integrated into the continuity of Kengo Kuma’s «Under one roof» building, the project is housed under the existing bridge, by the border of the EPFL, between the dense area of the campus and the open fields close to the lake and the mountains. Characterized by a sober and mineral apprearance, the concrete bridge becomes a shelter with its four pillars having their base drowned in the baths. These are accessed gradually through an underground processional route that allows you to recharge your batteries and enter into introspection. Once changed, users pass through showers, choose whether or not to stay in the sauna, then access the outdoor baths. On either side of these, wooden corridors frame the view and allow pedestrians to experience a similar transition, walking from urbanity to nature.

LIBRARY

An underground reading space in Lausanne, Switzerland

Antoine Yang Piquemal Professor: Dominique Perrault

Service ducts, metro, sewers and other constructions buried in the underground are the first infrastructures that come to mind when we think of what is happening underneath the city. This project is about questioning underground architecture and exploring its potential in a dense urban context. Imagined in the city center of Lausanne, this bookstore, workspaces and archives are presented as an extension of the existing

Chauderon library, which is located a few meters away. The project is located in a small park, on an intermediate level between the Avenue de Morges below and the Avenue d’Echallens above. The heavy traffic of these two adjacent roads hides this park from the outside, which explains why it is often empty and neglected. The underground integration of this library thus allows users to relax in an isolated and calm setting, conducive to concentration.

Inside, two wings extend from east to west, reaching street level on either side. On the one hand, a workspace descends, following the slope of the Avenue de Morges, providing the feeling of being buried deep under the ground. On the other side, a relaxation and reading area rises towards the Avenue d’Echallens.

These two urban levels are connected by the new park, which is none other than the roof of the library. The project comes to live and optimize the available space of the plot while remaining discreet, the park being the first thing that we see. This brings to the site more dynamism and landscape, while maintaining an urban airiness.

MUSEUM

Refurbishment of an abandoned factory in Malmö, Sweden

Antoine Yang Piquemal

Professors: Thomas Hellquist, Ingela Palsson Skarin

This project is part of the urban redevelopment of Gjuteriet, a former foundry in Malmö. The industrial building in question, a factory from 1910, is one of the most important historical landmarks of Kockums Dockyard and is an integral part of the town’s heritage. The original industrial hall represents an interesting conservation challenge in its current state, because is it deprived of a roof and its brick facades are partially eroded by the frost and the wind, leaving the steel structure almost bare. The commission aims to keep the building at the center of the urban development of this new district, with

open programs and utilities located on the ground floor, while offering services to an exclusive residential neighborhood with very high expectations.

It is in this particular context that the idea of an urban museum for the city takes place. The work of restoring and preserving such cultural heritage is necessary, and the building itself becomes a protected object of art on display for all to see. Located on the edge of the artificial canal, it takes advantage of a visual exposure, giving it the status of a monument, a landmark and could become a new social catalyst.

The general idea around this museum project consists of three platforms and nine concrete “boxes” within the initial volume of the factory. On the ground floor, the exhibition rooms are insulated and designed to preserve works of art that need protection from natural light and humidity, and can be calibrated independently of each other. On the first floor, simple and light walls allow a smooth exhibtions itinary and are used as a support for less fragile obejcts and art. The whole system (the rooms, their connections, the platforms and the stairs) is independent of the existing brick envelope, which is restored to its original state on the outside as well as being thermally insulated from the inside.

Skylight

Thermal insulation

Metallic structure

Light walls

Concrete slab Insulation

Tehnical

Thermal insulation

Entrances to the exhibition halls are placed on either side of the existing metal structure, inviting visitors to stroll around it. On the southern part of the building, the restaurant of the museum allows its users to enjoy of the full ceiling height, as well as the luminous restored brick facade.

In the extension attached to the main volume are the main entrance and the secondary programs, spreaded on two floors: a store, a changing room, archives and offices, a conference room, a workshop, the restaurant kitchen, toilets, and an accessible terrace on the second floor.

URBAN BLOC

Renovation of a plot in Malmö, Sweden

Antoine Yang Piquemal

Professors: Thomas Hellquist, Ingela Palsson Skarin

This second restoration project is also part of a major redevelopment of the industrial and waterfront district of Malmö. It aims at providing more housing and expanding the city center. The objective is to transform the entire existing plot, taking into account the present architectural heritage and preserving the strengths of each building in order to improve their character and urban integrity. The plot is composed of three well-defined entities, which has led to the imagined program, divided into three distinct but communicating functions. To the west part of the plot, a small museum fits into the red brick building, to which a restoration has been applied. Attached to it, an urban public walkway inhabits a food court, covered by the existing timber triangulated truss, supported by a series of metal posts and beams. The third portion of the block consists of a private residence whose various dwellings are framed by the original concrete slab and posts structure.

South facade

PROPAEDEUTIC YEAR

Introduction to the fundamental principles of architecture

Hand drawing and plaster work