Micro-architecture
experimentation

In 2025, the agency invited its staff and partners to take part in the Microtopies festival, organized by WAAO in the Lille region. This annual event, dedicated to microarchitecture, uses in situ installations to explore the links between constructive innovation, the conservation of natural resources and the reuse of materials.

The “Refuge(s)” project, imagined by our multidisciplinary volunteer team, was selected from among the submissions and took shape during a participatory worksite in July 2025. Coline Eysseric, Ambre Murgia, Fernanda Bernava, Albane Viateau, Séverine Savigny and Bénédicte Crespin combined their know-how to design and build a 100% reused microarchitecture.

Ephemerally installed in the Parc du Forum Vert in Villeneuve d’Ascq, this microtopia is at once an educational manifesto, an experimental shelter and a place for sensitive cohabitation. Designed around four living strata, it welcomes, observes and reveals the discreet forms of life; here, architecture exists through the life it shelters.

biodiversity
and education

At its base, crawlers and small mammals find suitable interstices for shelter and shade. At mid-height, men settle in, perches for observation and contemplation of the existing environment and the world around them. Higher still, where the air is freer, insects and birds make the installation their own, turning it into a space that moves with the wind and its wings. A hut with an open structure, weaving over the seasons links of exchange and observation between park users and the local fauna.

On a neighborhood scale, Refuge(s) fits naturally into an already active and committed local ecosystem, forging concrete links with local cultural and social structures.

It resonates with the “Green School” initiative of the Maison de quartier Jacques Brel, with its dynamic approach to transmitting knowledge and raising awareness of living things. Just a few meters away, the neighboring media library offers regular birdwatching workshops, which Refuge(s) can complement by becoming an educational support and a privileged observation post.

Reuse
and co-construct

The microtopic was designed and produced using local resources, either from stockpiles or recovered from our own construction sites.

The scaffolding structure was provided by Entrepose, who also took care of assembly and dismantling. The hammocks for the observers were woven from tennis net salvaged from the abandoned gymnasium at Orly airport. The bricks that make up the insect hotel at the top of the installation come from the stocks of the local Réemploi recycling platform in Ronchin. The fasteners and advertising tarpaulins, meanwhile, were selected from the Réserve des Arts in Montreuil. Finally, the hexagonal mesh was recovered from one of our Paris worksites: the Maison de l’Écologie.

Two days of participatory work brought together the design team, WAAO, and a number of local residents, who came to lend a hand or were simply curious observers.

Delicate silhouette
Respecting the context

At the crossroads of the park’s pathways, this architecture rises up, asserts itself and constitutes a landmark in the landscape, an urban beacon inscribed in the ephemeral.

The structure, designed from scaffolding elements, allows for an installation that respects the soil and its living strata. Rather than altering the ground, it adapts, installs lightly and sits on top of the existing structure without damaging it. With its vocabulary drawn from the world of construction and worksites, it asserts its identity as a product of reuse, and becomes a messenger of a future already in mutation.

PROJECT TEAM

DESIGN TEAM
ANMA architects: Coline Eysseric, Fernanda Bernava, Albane Viateau, Séverine Savigny
Associate architect: Ambre Murgia
Layout artist: Bénédicte Crespin

PARTICIPATIVE WORKSHOP
Ambre Murgia
Coline Eysseric
Fernanda Bernava
Bénédicte Crespin
Marie van Merris
Emil Walbron

COMPANIES
Entrepose: scaffolding loan, assembly and dismantling
Réempro: re-use platform
La Réserve des Arts: advertising tarpaulins, fasteners

TECHNICAL SHEET

STATUS Completed

PROJECT MANAGEMENT WAAO

SCHEDULE March 2025 – December 2025

AREA 6 m²

WORK €3,000 EXCL. TAX

ILLUSTRATIONS Ambre Murgia, Fernanda Bernava

PHOTOGRAPHY Julien Lelièvre

SEE MORE
Paris, Ateliers pédagogiques
Paris, Maison de l’Écologie
Villeneuve d’Ascq, La Maillerie