Ar - Severin Roussel and Ar - Philippe Zourgane: Anushka Anand Antara Harne Rutu Vartak Nazeeha Nazneen

AR.
SEVERIN ROUSSEL AND

AR.PHILIPPE ZOURGANE
ANUSHKA ANAND
ANTARA HARNE
RUTU VARTAK
NAZEEHA NAZNEEN
AR.SEVERIN ROUSSEL AND AR.PHILIPPE ZOURGANE
Séverine Roussel and Philippe Zourgane created the architecture office RozO architecture
passssage environnement. RozO is developing innovative projects in architecture and urban
planning in which environmental engineering and the human body have a central position.
The buildings designed by RozO are always in a strong harmony with the climate and
optimize the sites potentialities where they are built. RozO is designing projects in various
countries: France, Italy, Belgium, Senegal, Reunion Island, Corea. RozO is also regularly
developing transdisciplinary works in association with artists or theoricians especially on the
relation between architecture and nature and in the field of post colonial studies in Africa and
Indian Ocean. The co-foundators of RozO are often documenting this work through regular
conferences and workshop cessions for master cycles like such as in NABA- Milano (Italy),
Mimar Sinan – Istanbul (Turquey), CEPT – Ahmedabad (India), Faculty of Architecture of
Witswatersrand – Johannesburg (South Africa), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), Maputo
(Mozambic), Le Port (Reunion Island), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).
Séverine Roussel is architect, landscape architect and assistant professor at the faculty of
architecture of Paris La Villette.
Philippe Zourgane est architect, landscape architect and researcher at the Centre for Research
Architecture in Goldsmith College where he is Phd Candidate. His researches are focused on
the studies of «Free Zone» and the capacity of architecture to accompany struggle
movements and liberation movements. He is also assistant professor at the faculty of
architecture of Paris Val de Seine – Paris.
PROJECTS
Vegetation as a Political Agent - exhibition at PAV (Torino - Italy)
This project focuses on vegetation as a political agent in the context of territorial control in
the colonial and postcolonial periods in the South. Vegetation does not only serve decorative
purposes, as in private gardens: on a larger-scale, it becomes a tool with which to plan and
manage territory or, conversely to aid in the resistance movement. It makes it possible to
disappear and escape the colonial grid. And it was also used to create conditions of diverse
and autonomous existence by state administrations, such as those described by James Scott
in The Art of not Being Governed or by Philippe Zourgane in the text Architectural Free
Zone. This installation takes the form of a triptych that illustrates three uses of vegetation:
one in Réunion Island, one in Algeria and one in 20th Century Vietnam. This work consists
exclusively of archive materials. Vegetation can serve as a tool to conquer terrirtories, but it
can also constitute a precious device in resistance struggles or, simply, a source of pleaure
and joy in life, beyond questions of control.
The Green Room presented here is an archive. It is the reconstruction of a temporary space
built by members of the working-class on Réunion Island over the course of 150 years, from
the abolition of slavery until the end of the 20th Century. Such structures were erected to
celebrate important moments in family life such as weddings, baptisms, birthdays and kabars
(parties). Often they were built on occupied land beside the people’s houses or in their
gardens. The bamboo was sourced in the wild, and the coconut leaves were gathered by
family-members and friends: from the roadsides, the urban streets or public gardens.
The Green Room consists of a bamboo frame, covered with woven coconut leaves. Once its
function had been served, the canes were usually set aside to be reused, while the woven
leaves were used for other purposes, such as protecting young plants or objects from the sun.
When these temporary structures were abandoned, the plant element dried out and
decomposed over the course of the seasons.
Vegetation is employed here as an anti-capitalist weapon that enabled people to take pleasure
in life. It is a free architectural structure, constructed using free materials, that can be used
freely on free land. The construction method is collaborative: a joint effort by family, friends
and neighbours.
The archive images presented here are from the film Chiến thắng Tây Bắc' (The victory of
the North West) shot in 1952 by the military forces in Viet Minh during the war against
French occupation. Here vegetation is a tool employed in the struggle by the weakest against
the strongest. We do not refer here to the art of camouflage, nor to a return to a primitive
state: rather it is used as a subordinate weapon for the preservation of autonomy. Vegetation
is often used as a political agent in asymmetrical or revolutionary wars, as theorised by Mao
Tse-Toung and Ho Chi Minh. These images also demonstrate a form of counter-planning of
the land that allows topography (plains and mountains), geography and the ecosystem (the
forest or the savana) to be used as a weapon. These images depict the strength of the soldiers
Scholar group JBS-NDC

The Jean Baptiste de La Salle - Notre Dame de la Compassion school group, located in the
heart of Saint-Denis, is one of the oldest teaching places in France. It has existed since 1708
and occupies an area of 2.3 hectares in the heart of an islet in the historic city centre.
The project includes the design of a new building which will be the new entrance to the
school complex
and the rehabilitation of an existing listed building.
The set includes various programmatic elements: the new reception area of
the establishment, the administration of the school group, classrooms for middle school,
primary and kindergarten, and housing for the community of the sisters of Notre Lady of
Compassion.
The existing garden is reworked to create a new entry sequence from the new
building / entry and the existing buildings. This garden work articulates the whole project.
The project is built around plants and trees. The new building is designed to reveal the
existing plant continuity at the neighbourhood level and to make visible the existing hidden
garden of the school group. The project brings the school gardens to the boulevard to make it
the new facade of the school group.
The new building mixes physical trees (planting of new trees in the open ground) and the
metaphorical tree by an image of undergrowth laser cut from the perforated sheet of the
envelope. The garden tree and the tree of knowledge together form this new strong image of
the entrance. This porous skin is crossed by the sun in the morning, making the facade bright.
Recycle site
A Recycling is a space where individuals can get rid of objects which they no longer have
any use for free but which could be reused or reused. The initiative for such a structure is
therefore deliberately part of a strong environmental logic.
The project aims to make this environmental dimension immediately perceptible.
At the neighbourhood level, the project was designed to allow residents to feel valued by this
sorting and recycling equipment and not to suffer from any nuisance associated with this type
of equipment. Thus, the project proposes to surround the deposit space with a linear
garden. This linear garden produces a double enclosure which secures the site.
These gardens will be cultivated in partnership with local schools or given in management as
part of integration. Seen from the inside, the gardens also provide a buffer space which
reduces the visibility of the deposit activity and reduces other nuisances (noise, etc.).
It is a friendly place open to the neighbourhood.
The project also introduces a dialogue with the large scale of the Porte de Montreuil
roundabout and the perception of motorists. The closure of the site becomes signage and
carries a message: letters 3.00 m high are positioned at the edge of the site, forming visible
words both for pedestrians and for motorists.
In response to the surrounding urban scale, they respond to advertisements and the noise of
the gates of Paris.
The recycling facility is completed by a sorting centre in a warehouse located near

the site and a sales store located rue Saint Blaise, in the 20th arrondissement of Paris

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AR.

SEVERIN ROUSSEL AND

Vegetation as a Political Agent - exhibition at PAV (Torino - Italy)

Scholar group JBS-NDC

The recycling facility is completed by a sorting centre in a warehouse located near

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