Architecture-Studio is a French architecture practice founded in Paris in 1973 by Martin Robain, who has since been joined by a growing group of partners. It works as a collective, defining architecture as "an art that is socially committed and engaged in the construction of mankind's living environment" and developing each design through team debate rather than individual authorship. With Jean Nouvel it designed the Arab World Institute in Paris, and after the 2001 Shanghai exposition it began to grow in China, where it has an office in Shanghai; it also runs a research centre, CA'ASI, in Venice.
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The Notre-Dame-de-l'Arche-d'Alliance in Paris (1998), a Catholic church, is a perfect cube 18 metres on each side wrapped in a stainless-steel framework that glows at night, beside a bell tower like a slender steel lance. The Louise Weiss Building, European Parliament in Strasbourg (1999), won in an international competition in 1991, is the Parliament's principal building, with 220,000 square metres of floor and a distinctive 60-metre tower. In Athens the practice won the competition for Onassis Stegi (2010), a cultural centre on Syngrou Avenue with halls for 900 and 200 people.
