Stéphanie Bru

It took nine months to complete the work, and the rationality of the system facilitated the construction and the sobriety of the assemblies and the use of multiple materials. But while we are proud of the neutrality of the space and the technical modesty of the whole, the new generation research centre in Caen has a refined brutalism that requires a great deal of involvement in the execution, with no element hidden behind plasterboard. Lastly, it reveals an obvious pleasure in design, because, however generic it may be, its superstructure is clad in a sophisticated, highly identifiable skin, and its plan – almost a logo – is just as graphic as it is functional.

CV

Stéphanie Bru is a French architect and co-founder of the Paris/Zurich based architecture studio 'BRUTHER', together with Alexandre Theriot. They belong to the generation of architects who launched their careers at the beginning of the recession, a condition likely reflected in the way they define architecture: like a Swiss Army knife, a tool to be used in the most disparate circumstances, an aid that reconciles all fields of knowledge. Their recent projects suggest a delicate balance between strategy and form, rigour and freedom, specific and generic, immediacy and evolvability. Their work was the object of a monograph entitled "Introduction" in 2014, and of many other international publications (2G / 2017, El Croquis / 2019, A+U / 2023). Distinguished by several awards, they have received the Équerre d'Argent prize three times (2016, 2018 and 2020), the Dejean prize in 2018 from the Academy of Architecture and in 2020 the Swiss Architectural Award. Stéphanie Bru is also a lecturer at various architecture schools worldwide, as Associate Professor of Architecture & Design. In 2022, she taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. she currently teaches at the USI Academy of Architecture), Switzerland and she is Full Professor of Architecture at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.