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Studio

The Franco-Italian agency rotunno justman created by Maria Giulia Rotunno and Ary Justman in 2017 moved to Paris in September 2019. The two partners, former collaborators at the Sou Fujimoto agency, are passionate about Japanese culture and share a humanist, social and environmental approach to architecture today.

Our conceptual approach leads us to produce a refined and light architecture, which finds its meaning in spatial and light experimentation and which fits finely into an urban, rural or natural landscape. The urban and landscaped environment of the project is the starting point for the design. The integration of the building in its environment seems essential to us. The project should be seen as an obvious response that respects the context while improving it. We claim restorative architecture, resulting in minimal intervention on the site, as illustrated for example by our housing project in Martinique, in the Prêcheur district: the Bouquet Garni. Our architecture also praises slowness and lightness, for a soothing of an urban environment often under stress. It comforts humans and reconciles them with their senses. Ideally, it improves the daily lives of residents and users.

It is the vector of a human and social dimension. Our project of family retirement homes according to the Montessori method in Cancale, Vivons Ensemble, will allow the creation of intergenerational housing as an alternative to living in nursing homes. In this project, the materials thus become a field of experimentation with a facade coating which calls on local resources made up of oyster shells from the Cancal coast. In all of our projects, we are looking for carbon neutrality by selecting bio-sourced materials and specific applications. Like many young agencies, we started with apartment renovations. The strong will to assume the past of the buildings on which we intervene, passes by a practice of the archeology of the building. Our workshop builds on this historic approach to improve the spatial and technical qualities of the existing building in a contemporary language respectful of the past. Functionality, at the heart of the project and inspiring force of the design, comes before the form. Attention to detail contributes to the overall relevance of the architecture. The alignments, the proportions, the search for aesthetics complete the picture.

ARY JUSTMAN

After two years of studying physics, Ary decides to devote himself to architecture and leaves for Japan in Kyoto in search of minimalist inspiration.

He finished his studies at the Special School of Architecture and joined the agency T/E/S/S Engineering Workshop, which designs structural, facade and envelope projects. This experience will be lived as a second school as the approach to detail and structure seems intrinsic to a successful architecture.

Subsequently, he joined Sou Fujimoto Architects in search of a new experience to develop the agency's competition division in Paris. He will notably collaborate on the 1000 arbres project, flagship project of the Reinventing Paris call for projects and will participate in the emergence of the agency on the European scene.

He met his partner Maria Giulia there and decided to open the agency in 2018. Ary devoted himself to researching new concepts of the urban scale with constructive details, with human architecture as the leitmotif.

MARIA GIULIA ROTUNNO

Graduated from the School of Architecture ‘La Sapienza’ in Rome in 2012, she arrived in France for a year of study at the National School of Architecture of Malaquai in 2010.

She collaborates with the agency Shigeru Ban Europe in Paris by working on the subjects of temporary cardboard architecture at first and discovers the Japanese culture applied to architecture. She then worked for 2 and a half years on the project for the New Headquarters of Swatch and Omega in Switzerland, a building in concrete mixed wood construction in the team of Keina Ishioka.

Passionate about sensitivity and approach to the architecture of Japanese culture, she applied to Tokyo with the Sou Fujimoto agency and finally stayed in France to set up the Paris branch.

She collaborates with OXO and NLA agencies on the White Tree project and participates, in a team with her future partner Ary Justman, in various competitions.

In 2017, she founded the Archifluid collective and won the "Lyon City Tomorrow" Prize for the project of a Hydroponic greenhouse presented in Lyon on the occasion of the architecture biennial.

She decides to set up her own business and then join forces with Ary Justman to found the firm Rotunno Justman Architects in 2018.

People

Partners

Maria Giulia Rotunno
Ary Justman

Architects

Clémence Brottier
Maria Virginia Bittini
Arnaud Berland
Vincenzo Carducci Minh Dang

Administration

Sandra de Massé


Communication

Photos Giaime Meloni

Press, prizes and lectures

DATES
PROGRAM
DESCRIPTION
13/04/19
Prix