BLENDING TOGETHER NATURAL, HUMAN AND URBAN
For 20 years, the architecture, urban planning and landscape agency ANMA has been developing an attitude that draws its strengths from the environment, the sites that constitute it and the people who inhabit it.
This approach relies on the revelation of existing fabrics, the already there, to calm the coexistence of urban, human and natural environments. In theory, it is carried by 8 founding themes – the ultra-contextual, the ordinary-extra, natural energy, economic lightness, high quality of use, virtuous density, nature in the city and the poetics of the useless.
With its new team in 2020, the agency is reaffirming its stance in favor of design that respects energy and resources, and encourages experimentation and déjà-là. In 2022, by drafting and distributing aCSR Chartercharter, the company will demonstrate its economic, social and environmental commitments to continue anchoring its practices in an ethical and sustainable manner.
towards a soothed
and seamless living environment
Aware of the role of construction in the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, ANMA promotes sustainable solutions: the use of green energies, the conservation of existing ones, the integration of variable car parks, maintenance of natural geologic porosities …
At the district, the block or the building levels, the agency defends the mix of uses, flexibility and reversibility. For housing, offices and public premises, it creates living spaces designed as meeting and sharing spaces, where the quality of use prevails over form.
a flexible urban design
and seamless living environment
ANMA believes in the need of designing together shared design and relies on shared skills and the consultation for the making of one project. Internally, it privileges horizontalization in exchanges while externally, it pursues an urban planning practice that promotes dialogue and collective intelligence: workshops.
The agency invests in research to put innovation at the service of ecological and economic issues: it mobilizes specialists in operations, develops its own research platform and welcomes PhD students to complete their theses.
When it comes to defending the general interest ANMA positions itself as a city craftsman at the service of the environment. Places and their memory, contexts and their daily lives lead to the production of a common good. From the site and what exists, humble projects are born that respect all environments.
ENHANCE & REHABILITATE
THE BUILT HERITAGE
ANMA is committed to the redevelopment, rehabilitation and conversion of built heritage, whether protected or not. To prevent further demolishing, by repairing and revealing their history it developed a vision of architecture and town planning as the reappropriation of sites.
Through this work of enhancement, its projects fit right into existing patterns. Their discretion and sobriety come from a strong desire to identify what is already there and, nationwide, to blendi nto an ordinary that we help in making outstanding.
PROJECTS
DECLARED
At ANMA, the consistency of projects is guaranteed from sketch to delivery thanks to a dedicated partner’s monitoring each operation. It ensures the transmission and continuity of the design between project managers at each and every phases: competition, studies and site.
The project managers and their teams manage their projects independently and benefit from the expertise of the ANMA ecosystem to adjust the key factors of success: model, BIM Management, construction economics, landscape, research platform… Among these, the agency claims the complementarity of urban, architectural and landscape visions that can be mobilized internally.
Each project is as specific as the intersection of views it will have generated. Collective intelligence guarantees the relevance of the project vis-à-vis the environmental and social values of the project.
digital know-how
at the service of the project
ANMA has an open attitude towards digital tools. She applies herself to mastering them with skill and is constantly exploring new applications.
The BIM process and the development of digital models are integrated into its production since 2014 and systematized on all studies of the agency since 2018. It is declined in the field of the landscape and the city, with the LIM and the CIM, thus facilitating a decompartmentalized collaborative approach between disciplines practiced by the agency.
A team of experts led by a BIM Manager oversees the internal process and exchanges with partners.
Virtual visits, life cycle analysis or environmental simulations are all new digital uses made possible by BIM. The integration and updating of these innovative methods is also one of the pillars of the agency’s continuous improvement approach to methods and project quality.
research
platform
For over 10 years, ANMA has pursued an approach that combines the integration of researchers into its teams, with the production of educational content and technical experimentation. University research, transmission and innovation form the three pillars of a Research Platform run by a dozen doctoral students, architects, urban planners and landscape architects.
Internally, this Platform aims to disseminate, train and promote eco-innovative design solutions, reconciling high environmental quality and high quality of use. It is the place where a multiplicity of players, interests and practices hybridize, becoming the driving force behind the renewal of agency professions.
These include exhibition design, publishing, thesis and article writing, video production, internal dissemination of engineering know-how and its application, for example, in the form of ATEX filings.
Discover our research applied to projects.
Our recent contributions
Projecting the urban to the test of ecological controversies : Defense of a CIFRE thesis, 2024
A line, People and Oysters : Intercontinental digital discussion of approaches to resilience, 2024
Uncertain soils in experimentation : Article in Practices in Research #4, 2023
Terre Terrain Territoire : Soil discussion :
Publication of a research book on soil, 2023
Terre Terrain Territoire: A ground-based reading of the urban fabric Design of a travelling exhibition, 2022
A parametric modeling approach to urban planning : Defense of a CIFRE thesis, 2021
WORKING AT ANMA
IN A PEACEFUL ENVIRONMENT
On the four levels of the Cour des Petites Écuries, employees can enjoy a life in the agencythat is punctuated by rhythmic events as well as ad hoc meetings.
The agency’s breakfast, Anmatinale, is an opportunity every other week to follow a variety of presentations and stay informed. Several times a year, we also attend Technico-Matério lunches with manufacturers. In summer, the seminar gives all employees the opportunity to gather and visit the agency’s achievements and to reflect on ways of doing things.
In-house, It is possible to join different groups to participate in the organization of events to familiarize with other fields – research, rooftop agriculture, yoga – or take advantage of collaborative opportunities with branches in Bordeaux, Brussels or Beijing.