(France, 1968)
Head of the Parisian Architecture firm Mésarchitecture, with Pascal Mazoyer, since 2001, Didier Faustino builds collaborative spaces for reflection at the frontier of architecture, installation, and performance. Defining three possible typologies of Tomorrow’s shelter, Didier Faustino’s project scripts possible scenarios following a catastrophe due to global warming and the rise of sea waters, which transform the landscape as much as our society. In-between paranoia and a hope for alternative solutions, the architect offers three modules each composed of two parts: solid volumes of concert corresponding to individual living spaces, with large metal platforms hung between or around them as dedicated public spaces. This configuration contrasts the image of a hyperprotective bunker with bare trusses above the ground, expressing how an architectural form can adapt to a mutating environment: as the water rises only the platforms will emerge while the inferior elements will remain submerged. This project embodies the vision of an architect facing a world, which from now on can only think of itself in terms of communal strength: the metaphor here being us coming together above the water in order to survive.
