Lacaton & Vassal is a French architecture practice founded in Bordeaux in 1987 by Anne Lacaton (born 1955) and Jean-Philippe Vassal (born 1954); the practice moved to Paris in 2000. In Niger, where Vassal worked in the early 1980s, they formed their guiding idea: "never demolish what could be redeemed". They are known for transforming existing social housing rather than tearing it down, and for doing more with cheap materials and greenhouse construction, which gives homes extra winter-garden space at low cost. They received the Pritzker Prize in 2021 for what the jury called a "restorative architecture".
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The House in Cap Ferret (1998) was one of their early private houses. At the Nantes School of Architecture (2009), 5,500 square metres of floor are left without a fixed use, to be taken over as the school needs. For FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunkirk (2013) they kept a large harbour boathouse intact and built a twin beside it to house the contemporary art collection. In the Grand Parc Bordeaux Transformation (2016), they cut away the old façade panels of occupied housing blocks to add balconies and large sliding windows.
