Jean-Christophe Quinton architect
18 rue de la Grange-Batelière
75009 Paris, France

+33 (0)9 73 53 46 34
contact@quinton-architect.com
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Being an architect is about giving everyone the opportunity to be at greater ease with their environment, with other people and with themselves. It’s about thinking and designing places in which all types of human activity can flourish. No matter how intense our immersion into a space may be, architecture always invites us on an existential journey to belong to the world, to be present, and to feel alive. What ensures this immediate and tangible architectural experience is the considered use of the unique resources at architecture’s disposal during each project’s development phase: How will the body relate with its environment? What of the space’s purpose, the materials, dimensions, and the room itself? How will one take into consideration the relationship between interior and exterior, architectonics and space? The relationship between these elements, which finds its balance in a well-situated project, is at the heart of my architectural practice.

When I design, I allow myself to be guided by the project itself, to be sensitive to what is required for it to fully reveal itself. I find and establish the project’s rules; I try to identify the internal order that defines its character. A formalized process generates a specific form sometimes a rudimentary geometry, which then offers a recognizable pattern. Each project is thus the result of thorough research. The office is conceived of as a place to explore a project as defined by the project on its own terms; it is a workshop for experimentation and research. Our workshop is a place where each undertaking is realized by hand on a human scale through drawings and models.

Architecture thus emerges through a host of representations:
The blueprint gives details of the room, the project’s original core.
The rooms themselves, alone, dispersed.
The plan as a “society of rooms” (Kahn), which unites them.
The figure of the space where the relationship between the room and the building is played out.
The site’s figure refers to the project’s presence in its context.
The diagram explains the formalizing processes of the project.
The all-in-one linear drawing assembles the section, plan and axonometry and accounts for the project’s formal singularity.

Regarding drawing: It can be considered as an architectural practice of its own, whether of observation, analysis or design. The observation drawing tries to explore the world without constraint, with patience, in its own temporality. It helps to unmask the most superficial part of our gaze. The design drawing gives us an overview that allows us to look closely, to imagine and contemplate the project in process. It is a guide that directs us through the complexity of each situation; it confirms one’s intuition and calls for synthesis. Drawing allows you to explore rules, measurement and geometry. This research helps us to understand the internal order of things, to comprehend its systems and to restore inherent strengths. In a world of constraints, drawing remains a place of freedom where we never stop opening ourselves up to new possibilities.

Jean-Christophe Quinton, born in 1972, is graduated from the Paris-Belleville school in 2000. He created his office in 2003. In 2004, he won the New Albums of Young Architects and was mentioned in the Chernikov Prize in 2010. He also teaches in various schools of architecture and, since 2015, has directed the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture of Versailles. The monograph of his work Towards the Immediate Strangeness of Forms received the City of Briey’s Grand Prix for Architecture Book in 2017. He has been a full member of the Academy of Architecture since 2019.

Team

Elias Bourbia
Valentine Contant
Romain Curnier
Alice Florin
Candice Grojean
Alexandra Javellaud
Anne Machet
Valentine Machet
Emmanuel Malle
Yann Motreff
Paul Pascaud
Pierre Plaquevent
Elena Tejero
Eric Zimmerli

Special thanks to the following for their contributions to the office’s work

Houda Amrani, Anne-Charlotte Astrup, Pierre-Alexandre Bardat, Pantea Bahiraie, Laure Baubion, Hilaire Baudoin, Cyril Beaugé, Anthony Benarroche, Augustin Beraud, Hélène Besnard, Charlotte Billon, Alix Blancard, Thomas Bouchet, Pierre Breger, Louise Calmon, Naïs Campedel, Vivien Camus, Achille Caquant, Daphnée Caubit, Tristan Chadney, Laurence Cheret, Louise Claudel, Gaspard Clozel, Guy Conan, Francesca Coden, Pierre Condé, Martin Coudrey, Ambroise De Courtivron, Kang Dong-Eun, Matthieu Drujon, Claire Duchamp, Vincent Dumay, Benoît Dumont, Laure Duval, Thomas Duval, Adrien Fontanell, Cécile Gaillard, Alexis Gauchet, Victor Gautrin, Alexis Gayet, Alma Gazeau, Louise Graf, Romuald Grall, Tristan Guibert, Pierre Guillaumé, Morgane Guillemin, Raphaël Hucliez, Julie Jambon, Samuel Jaubert De Bauteu, Nicolas Jacquot, Maxime Jaume, Biancheng Jiang, Raphaël Kadid, Tae-Hee Kang, Daehan Kim, Hyung-Suk Kim, Susie Kim, Audrey Kromwel, Hugo Lamy, Carole Lenoble, François Le Pivain, Taeck-Gu Lee, Rozenn Lerin, Florent Lesaulnier, Martin Leveilley, Minghao Li, Laura Llort, Jérémie Loury, Harold Macdonald, Jack-Yves Marion, Brice Maurin, Valentin Mazet, Thibault Mazevet, Geoffrey Ménage, Anis Merun, Victor Miot, Rastine Mir, Guillaume Mithieux, Jérémy Monsimert, David Moreaux, Henry Morgan, Manon Muller, Anne Musca, Nathan Paulot, Yara Pavel, Félix Pernot, Olivier Peroneau, Juliette Pochard, Vincent Pottier, Antoine Pradeau, Tadeusz Pruszkowski, Noémie Puyo, Guillaume Ramillien, Charles Rosenfeld, Agathe Rota, Huguette Ruzibiza, Yony Santos, Florent Schwartz, Camille Sineau, Zeng Teng, Mathilde Tistchenko, Vu Tran Duy Anh, Lindley Vidal, Antoine Wenisch, Nicolas Wicart, Cheng-Yen Wu, Di Wu, Deahwan Yeo, Nenad Zivkovic.

Credits

Graphic design: Building Paris.
Code: Ahmed Ghazi.
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