Et soudain surgit face au vent….
Bocabeille Fassio Viaud

Let’s get started, let’s talk about architects. Architects can be harassing, discredited. They are constantly re-inventing their own practice. They take financial risks and bear important legal responsibilities. Yet, ever-lasting youth is one of the most significant virtues of architects. A 50-year-old architect is a young architect. BFV is thus a young architecture practice, created in 2018 by three lively architects in their fifties and strongly animated by the power of youth : on one hand, Jean Bocabeille, who had been running his own studio since 2012, and on the other hand, Olivier Fassio and Jean-Brice Viaud, who established their studio in the 1990’s (Fassio Viaud Architectes). As Olivier Fassio (who is also psycho-genealogist) would say, meeting someone by chance is by nature part of the wider story, even the destiny. BFV perfectly embodies his statement.

Back to the future. Jean Bocabeille studied at Belleville during the “great years” of the school (the Ciriani period). He established his first practice together with Ignacio Prego in 1996 (BP Architectures). At the very beginning of the 2000’s, he and three other studios funded Plan01, a collective of architects and friends. Plan01 designed and completed several buildings, including the Thiepval memorial (2004), the Vendée History Museum (2006) and the Vern-sur-Sèche crematorium. In 2012, Jean Bocabeille and Ignacio Prego decided to put their common practice to an end, and Jean started his solo practice. He built dwellings and a religious center for Vinci in the Batignolles district, dwellings in the rue de Nantes, a school in Courbevoie, a nursery in Epinay-sous-Senart, another school in Paris 18, and the M9C multifunctional complex (dwellings, a school and a theater) for Paris Rive Gauche.

For their part, Olivier Fassio and Jean-Brice Viaud both graduated from the renowned school of Versailles. They completed together several singular and noteworthy buildings, including the first offices made of Corian for PRD (an energy-plus building housing the Cité de l’environnement in Pantin), the Paul Baillart cultural center in Massy, a canine center, a public library in l’Île-Saint-Denis and a sport hall made of stone in Versailles. Repetition is something they banished from their work. Their appetite for new experiences led them to exciting challenges, some of them being addressed for the first time : wooden structure (Pulse), using Corian and stone cladding, original geometries… The three men met in the French Touch, a collective of architects in which they were involved. In 2008, when Goldmann Sachs collapsed and cast a shadow over the world, the collective curated the French pavilion of the Venice Biennale with a project called GénéroCité. More, the collective’s Annuel d’Architecture Optimiste (Optimist Architecture Yearly Issue) made the headlines and has been a matter of debate for several years. Remember?

Optimism, friendship, and, above all, a sense of adventure. For Jean, Olivier and Jean-Brice, this new partnership is part of a long story of collectives and challenging collaborations. In the end, the new team’s strategy is the same as ever : being genuinely alive and sharing ideas and experiences. Do It Yourself is too cynical - they rather go for Do It Together. Their first projects as a team include : Pulse, a 30 000sqm wooden structure office building for Icade in Aubervilliers (completed in 2019), a student hall in Aubervilliers (also completed in 2019), a 6500sqm office building for DCB in Villeurbanne (expected for 2021) and 430 high standard dwellings as part of a transformation-restructuration-extension operation in Suresnes, on the river side (also expected for 2021).

Contractors, urban planners and developers, public bodies, elected leaders… This message is for you. BFV, it’s more than 800 000 sqm of housing, offices and public programs, built in either tense or relaxed environments, from 1 up to Z. It’s a genuine taste for novelty, a deep trust in the human factor, and more than 30 years of experience.

It’s a young team ; look no further.