Judith Busson, architecte associée, Figura -
Chloé Massot et Eloïse Couapel, architectes associées, Loom architecture
Roundtable organized by ARDEPA and introduced by Lucille Vinchon, Co-Director
Transformation is now at the heart of architectural practice. Whether it involves rehabilitating existing heritage, adapting buildings to climate challenges, responding to evolving uses, or designing differently under technical, economic, and environmental constraints, the transformations required by contemporary challenges provide opportunities to question and renew the way we build.
Through the combined perspectives of Figura and Loom Architecture, winners of the 2025 JAPL Awards, this roundtable will explore transformation as a design approach rather than simply an intervention on existing buildings.
Drawing on three key themes and six completed and ongoing projects across the Pays de la Loire region, the speakers will demonstrate how changes in building programs, energy retrofitting, material reuse, low-carbon construction sectors, and budgetary constraints can become powerful drivers of architectural quality, resilience, and innovation.
FIGURA :
Founded in Nantes by Judith Busson and François Cattoni, Figura is an architecture practice committed to an agile, strategic, and reality-based approach. We are involved from the earliest stages of projects, including feasibility studies and client advisory services, helping to clarify key challenges and turn each project into a genuine driver of transformation.
Our work is guided by three core principles: experimenting through every commission, prioritizing the transformation of existing buildings over demolition, and designing a restrained architecture in which structure and materiality play a central role.
Since 2019, we have focused on two main areas of expertise: housing, from individual homes to collective developments, as a laboratory for contemporary ways of living and as a tool for densifying existing urban fabric; and the productive city, where we support the transformation of activity sites into more compact, hybrid, and high-quality forms of development.
In 2025, the practice was awarded the JAPL (Jeunes Architectes et Paysagistes Ligériens) prize and was selected for JAPO (Jeunes Architectes à l’Ouest).
Website : www.figura.studio
LOOM :
LOOM Architecture is a team of three partner architects, Nathalie Debray, Chloé Massot and Eloïse Couapel, who advocate for architecture that respects both the environment and its urban and landscape context. We work throughout Brittany and the Pays de la Loire region on a wide range of projects, including public facilities (schools, town halls, cultural venues), individual and collective housing, and office buildings.
We view building as a durable and committed process. We are dedicated to promoting local identity through the projects we design: each project responds to its environment and reinterprets local construction techniques to express a strong sense of place.
The word loom refers to a weaving loom and symbolizes, for us, both the architect and the craftsman, practicing a form of urban stitching with great attention to detail. We see architecture as a way of creating connections: between past and present, between people and spaces, and between craftsmanship and materials.
Website : https://www.loom.archi/