Philippe Hermann belongs to the young generation of French architects. After a strong education out of France, he created his own agency in 2005. Appreciated for his versatility and knowledge of different working techniques, he could obtain an important credit list through collaborating with various offices on the international scene of architecture. The activities of the agency are various, from architecture to town planning or artistic intervention.
This is connected with making skilled individuals with different and complementary profiles work together. Beside the fresh acquaintances, the meetings and the intense relationships built up between people who generate them and those who tend to use them, over the relationship between people itself, it is a production of concrete elements. The building act is not pain-killer. Even though it results from a strong will from a customer, it may sometimes turn overwhelming for the neighborhood. This is why it is important to make it have sense in terms of design, techniques, social impact, location, culture... It must be generous and economic at the same time. Satisfy needs and take place in the area where it is implemented. The interaction of building and town must each time generate another project than the one resulting from a theoretical program. A project linked to each action on the area and space, whatever the dimension, even modest. Each particular opportunity becomes a subtle way to grow the identity in a complex and multiple environment in permanent evolution.
The city is precious, it has to be preserved. It consists of buildings which must contribute to it, within their interconnections. This hard task requires many efforts, self-questionings sometimes non-conventional approaches. This will of ethics must however go on by any way. A great mastery of the technical processes, of the materials and an acute sensibility as regards relationships between spaces, are compulsory.
According to the choices made at the beginning, the evolutions of the light and the action of time come to question the durability of the building, its image, its relevance and its cost on the long term for its users.
The sensible and reasoned steps by Philippe Hermann do not correspond to the research of sophistication or demonstrative feats. If advanced technology is cropping up, it is with an aim of improving simple, clever, tested solutions, sometimes borrowed from other fields than standardized construction. The materials, selected for their constructive qualities and their own aspects, are of relevant interest. In this approach which takes detail as well as globality into account, the choice of materials is done with pleasure and love, that of their logical and imaginative implementation.|