From raw matterto inhabited work
Listening to a place, running a site with rigour. An architecture practice in Nouméa since 2011, designing and managing public and private buildings, from competition to handover.
01 — The practice
Fifteen years learning this territory.
In 2011, Karine Demortier founded her practice on one conviction: New Caledonia deserves better than imported models. A climate, a relief, uses and a customary context call for answers of their own.
Fifteen years later, more than a hundred projects delivered. Public facilities, schools, healthcare buildings, offices, housing, rehabilitation works. Never the same answer twice.
We work from competition through to handover, on full or partial commissions. That is the rigorous part of the craft — the part that makes intentions hold.
Because a building that is right does not impose itself on a place. It reveals what was already there.
2011Practice founded
100+Projects delivered in New Caledonia
15ansOf practice in this territory
5People — a deliberately small team
02 — Projects
Never the same answer twice
Before every project there is a place. And the time it takes to listen to it.
03 — Approach
The genius of place
The genius of place is not an intuition. It is a method.
Before drawing, we read the site: what it is, what it imposes, what it allows. Every project decision follows from that.
Read the site
Genius of placeTopography, orientation, prevailing winds, the sun's path, built and customary context. No site is a blank page: siting, massing and openings all come out of that reading.
Design with the climate
Bioclimatic & frugalWorking with the sun and the trade winds rather than correcting them: natural ventilation, solar shading, thermal mass. Comfort before machinery. And a deliberate economy of means — what is not necessary is not built.
See it through
Territorial anchoringFrom competition to handover, on full or partial commissions. Engineers brought in early, a shared BIMx model, constant dialogue: the original intention is still there in the finished building, anchored in its territory.
04 — Contact
Let’s talk about your project
A place, a use, an intention: describe your programme in a few lines. We will get back to you so we can talk it through.