Quarry de Saint-Restitut

_Is architecture to blame for our estrangement from rain ? Research into how we relate to the elements, and particularly to rain. _The roof: a primitive gesture in response to the elements ? This fundamental element is identified as a figure on the edge of the rain, facing the sky and thus turning its back on the earth. It allows people to turn their backs to the sky and to auscultate the sky's elements. _Shinohara's “Tanikawa House”: Is vulnerability a condition for the existence of the elements ? Reducing living space to its essence, in spatial continuity with the hostility of the site.

_Where to situate architecture in the context we have inherited ? In the highly anthropized geographical context of the Rhone Valley, the project proposes a change of posture for the architect. Human intervention in the valley is based solely on the potential of the soil. We hypothesize that the celestial frame of reference could provide an answer. The search for the project site turned to the identification of a culminating point. The Barry massif presented itself as a kind of sacred mountain, a preserved emergence in the valley. The old quarries are part of the massif's palimpsest. By definition, a quarry removes part of the topography, allowing the sky to penetrate rather than just skim the earth's surface. In this way, we reverse the posture, choosing a site where, symbolically, the sky enters the earth. _Could architecture be a tipping point between the terrestrial and celestial worlds ? The project proposes to propel man to this sensitive point. Architecture is at the center of hostility. In the clouds, humidity, rain, storm. The form has imposed itself as an autonomous geometry with respect to the site, and by giving it a consistent thickness, we move from a surface to a three-dimensional object. The structure does not belong completely to the earth or the sky. An artificial form that would act as an interface. It's a search for dialogue with a geography beyond our grasp, that of the movement of winds and vapors, of the force of the elements. The platform is a technical, infrastructural object that manages flows, data coming from the sky and converging on the earth and vice versa. Where two elements meet: water+earth, air+earth. Architecture is no longer a force against, but rather a system that takes in these exchanges.