Les Grands Ateliers de l’Isle-d’Abeau, a project that was awarded the Prix de l’Équerre d’argent in 2002, is an educational utopia. It is a place where people experiment with materials and spatiality on a real scale. Engineers, architects, artists and professionals can come together there to gain and share insights into materials.”

The utopian infrastructure was partly conceived by the founders of CRAterre, a laboratory in Grenoble specialising in raw earth construction, which has contributed to a revival of the use of raw earth and associated building methods in contemporary construction.