Architecture Competition Vale De Moses Meditation Cabins Honorable mention - Pauline Tondreau and Manon Saint Ghislain

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our Honorable mention winners for our “Vale De Moses Meditation Cabins” competition - Pauline Tondreau and Manon Saint Ghislain from Belgium.

Manon Saint Ghislain and Pauline Tondreau from Belgium

A female duo, composed of a French and a Belgian girl, currently based in Brussels. Both met during their studies in Tournai (UCL LOCI).

MANON SAINT GHISLAIN (24/03/91 – Lille) :

2014 - participation in the Pool Promenade competition, Porto, Portugal First. She worked one year in the Vers.A office based in Brussels, then five years in the Guy Melviez office, where she acquired experience in execution and construction of small and medium housing renovation projects. She will start a new experience in the Auxau office after the summer.

PAULINE TONDREAU (30/06/91 - Tournai) :

After her graduation, she worked one year in the Lisbon office BUREAU A (now called Leopold Banchini and BUREAU). After this experience, she came back to Brussels and has been working for 3 years in the Brussels based office OUEST architecture. During this last year, Pauline was invited as a guest jury in several Brussels architecture schools (UCL, ULB, etc.)

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company / individuals have been involved?

The duo has worked together on some housing projects in Brussels. We appreciate human scale projects; we both are working on renovation (housing and cultural buildings, like theatre, cultural centres), and context (in its larger definition, which means localization, storytelling, clients, etc.) is also important in our approach.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

We see ourselves as a club, a duo of architects that loves to speak/work on architecture in a not (too) serious way. Topics that interest us:

- In this current world, questioning the way of living, studying, working, and at the same time how to build regarding the context, environment, sustainability, etc.

- Through public and private space, short or long-time building - how to create a connection/bond between people that allows user-friendliness, proximity, pedagogy.

- How to build and un-build, reuse existing spaces and materiality.

- How to design in a changing word, which means - working with the space’s flexibility, temporality, how space can/could evolve.

Why do you participate in architecture vision competitions?

It’s been a long time that we’ve known each others and wanted to work together, but could not find the occasion. We also prefer working on competitions where there is an opportunity to build, not only create ideas.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture vision competitions?

Just do it!