“Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform and reuse!” That’s the mantra of French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, winners of the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most prestigious award in the field. The two are known for their focus on revitalizing low-income housing complexes, choosing to modify and improve structures rather than demolish and rebuild. In 2017, for example, Lacaton and Vassal were hired to redesign a large and unsightly concrete public housing building, Grand Parc in Bordeaux, France. The residents of the building wanted larger units but didn’t want to move out during construction. Lacaton and Vassal, along with architects Frédéric Druot and Christophe Hutin, devised a solution to add a system of outdoor terraces over the existing structure that extended the footprint of the living rooms by adding spacious balconies with sliding glass doors. Some of the units doubled in size. The building’s elevators and plumbing were also modernized, all without displacing any of the residents during construction. The project cost was one-third of the cost of demolishing and building new. “Transformation is the opportunity of doing more and better with what is already existing,” Lacaton said in a press statement. “The demolishing is a decision of easiness and short-term. It is a waste of many things — a waste of energy, a waste of material and a waste of history. Moreover, it has a very negative social impact.”

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