Îlot A3, Herzog & de Meuron + collaborators — Photography by Julien Lanoo

Îlot A3

Location: Lyon, France

Îlot A3 is the pilot block of Lyon Confluence 2, the second phase of the city’s redevelopment of former industrial and market land between the Rhône and Saône. Developed under the urban vision of Herzog & de Meuron with Michel Desvigne, it brings together housing, offices, retail, public space, and a nursery school around a shared garden courtyard.

The block gathers several architectural voices, including Tatiana Bilbao, Christian Kerez, Manuel Herz, AFAA, Didier Dalmas, Michel Desvigne as landscape architect, and Herzog & de Meuron. This multiplicity gives the project its character: a compact piece of city shaped by different scales, materials, and domestic typologies.

Herzog & de Meuron’s Building 5, the first high-rise in Lyon Confluence 2, marks the corner of Rue Smith and a public passage. Set back to create a small square, it combines rounded corner loggias, a mineral concrete façade, and a regular window rhythm that echoes the structured surfaces of historic Lyon.

2024

Tatiana Bilbao Estudio – Architecture for the Community

Groupe Exhibition

For Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, questions of how people live together are central to architecture and urban planning. The Mexican studio’s internationally acclaimed projects respond sensitively to local conditions, approaching sustainability with empathy and responsibility. Social engagement, collaboration, and multidisciplinary research form an essential part of the studio’s process, informing designs through collages and free-hand drawings. Conceived as a spatial collage, the exhibition presents an architecture attentive to both people and natural resources. Photographs by **Julien Lanoo** were interwoven throughout the exhibition, offering a visual encounter with the studio’s built work and quietly contributing to the atmosphere, rhythm, and narrative of the show. Text: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich