matiere.projects
RESHAPING
Material Development
Concrete-like Cellulose
2025
Cellulose
_ Most abundant organic polymer on Earth
_ Provides rigidity and support to plants
_ Made of glucose units
Concrete
_ Responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions
_ Mixture of cement, water, and aggregates
IDEAL ODDITY
Photographs of Louise COURCOL’s work
2023
The concept of “oddness” describes the feeling between the terms yucky and gentle. Yucky is quite familiar and childish, but it represents that feeling of being repulsive, without exaggeration. Gentle, one of the antonyms of yucky, symbolizes that mood between soothing and sweet. These two terms together create, according to this research, the concept of ‘oddness’: How can the strange be reassuring?
Through colors, this project will experiment with this concept of the oddness. It translates the intrinsic need of colors to change and adapt with others, and how a color can be odd or reassuring. In these three outfits, the different parts of the garments fit together and close with stuffed pockets. Through colour, and the shapes created by stuffing, the clothes become abstract forms.
URBAN WATER HARVESTER
_ L O T U S
Design Research
2024
Extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent, and we are already witnessing their consequences. Cities are slowly adapting to this new reality, integrating solutions like China’s sponge cities to absorb better and manage excess water.
But beyond protection, why not also harness this resource? Water is and will remain a precious commodity. Instead of letting it escape, how can we design urban spaces to collect and utilize rainwater efficiently?
This project explores ways to transform heavy rainfall from a challenge into an opportunity for sustainable urban living.
THERMAL CLOTHES
Design Research – 2024
Bodies have evolved to become impressively optimized machines. Humanity has taken thousands of years to adapt to different climates around the world. The main ways for the body to evacuate heat are through radiation and sweat evaporation. But today, the climate is changing too fast. When the outside temperature reaches that of the body, radiative cooling is no longer effective. When humidity becomes too high, sweat can no longer evaporate efficiently. Cooling becomes impossible.
When Skin can not adapt, Clothes must.
Current techniques to cool down people and spaces (air conditioning, Kuchofuku jackets, fans…) rely on raw energy consumption. How can we rethink clothes to use the energy that nature provides? How can we use nature’s energy to cool us down?
SHRINKING SPACES
Design Research – 2024
In the 21st century, a shift towards shrinking suburbs and urban redevelopment is taking place, where city centers are being reimagined vertically, often in the form of residential towers. This change is driven by globalization, which has focused investment on city centers, forcing individuals to rethink how they inhabit and organize their homes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated this transformation by normalizing remote work, blurring the boundaries between professional and personal spaces, and increasing the demand for home offices within urban living environments.
This shift calls for a smarter approach to space optimization. As living and working environments merge, adaptable furniture becomes essential to maintaining comfort and functionality within limited square footage.
SUTORU
Design project / 3D simulations – 2025
The idea of “soft separation” captures the space between enclosure and openness. Enclosure can feel heavy or rigid; openness, though liberating, can feel exposed. Between the two lies a gentle threshold—one where boundaries calm rather than constrain. This is the space explored by SUTORU.
Inspired by Japanese shōji, SUTORU uses linen panels tinted with walnut husk dye to shape rooms with lightness and fluidity. Subtly varied in tone and transparency, the panels veil and reveal at once. Suspended and movable, they let space shift, realign, and adapt. Through texture, colour, and quiet motion, SUTORU turns division into a soft, atmospheric modulation of light and intimacy.
IDIORHYTHMIC
Photography – 2024
[Idios] Own _ [Rythmos] Rythme
Life is a wander. Even when beliefs offer an alternative to the void of meaning in existence, it may never feel enough. From the cold side of reality, living can seem like an infinite spiral through corridors, searching for others, connections and goals.
But what if, by stopping and looking around, we could see things differently?
What if the beauty of life resided in this meaningless quest?
Freed from the chains of purpose, we begin to follow our own path.
This project is part of a series of 15 photos, broadly centered on human existence throughout life.
