Journal

The call for proposals for AR#1, focused on aquaculture, is now open. We welcome your proposals for articles, projects, creative writing, visual works, or any other kind of contribution suited to print publication.... Read more

Atelier LUMA is pleased to announce the launch of AR’s pilot issue, AR#0 Bioremediation.... Read more

LINA, the European architecture platform, is helping architecture tackle the climate and environmental crisis. In its call for projects, LINA calls upon emerging architects and other creatives to share their ideas, projects, or practices that might help make the European... Read more

From July 2nd, Atelier LUMA's Cabinet de Curiosité is an invitation to dive into the design processes behind the materials deployed in the Parc des Ateliers, in The Tower and in the Le Réfectoire restaurant.... Read more

After holding two forums in Switzerland alongside the Rhône, AQUA-VALLEY, InTent and Waterpreneurs are teaming up to hold the 3rd edition of the “Innovate 4 Water” forum on the banks of the same river, in Arles on May 17, 2022... Read more

AR is a new multi- and transdisciplinary publication that uses algae as a lens to examine the cultural, economic, social and ethical topics at the heart of Atelier LUMA’s work and that of its contributors.... Read more

In May 2022, Atelier LUMA invites you to participate in its workshops dedicated to earth and fiber construction.... Read more

From November 16 to 19, Atelier LUMA led a two-part workshop in Venice with the aim of researching algae and its many manifestations in the local context. One group explored the potential of materials derived from algae, while another explored... Read more

Atelier LUMA is participating in the “Waste Age: What can design do?” exhibition at the Design Museum in London, running through February 20, 2022. Through more than 300 objects, the “Waste Age” exhibition at the Design Museum in London explores... Read more

The Rooting modular tile system, designed to allow vegetation to grow in the gaps of outdoor paths that comply with accessibility standards, won a Swiss Design Award today, in the Product Design category. ... Read more

June 26, 2021, is an important day for LUMA Arles: it’s the official opening of the Parc des Ateliers and the LUMA Tower. For the first time since 2007, visitors will be able to discover the renovated historic buildings at... Read more

Atelier LUMA set up a first collaboration with TEDAC in 2019 to recycle uprooted Japanese knotweed. In June 2021, Atelier LUMA organized a week of workshop and production, to further engage in this collaboration, and to showcase the work of... Read more

Rooting is a modular tile system designed for outdoor applications, developed by AATB in collaboration with Atelier Luma in 2018-2020. In 2021, Rooting is nominated for the Swiss Design Awards. ... Read more

From May 25 to 28, 2021 Atelier LUMA in collaboration with BC Materials organized a series of workshops around raw earth building materials and techniques. The workshops took place in the Parc des Ateliers, in the framework of the rehabilitation... Read more

The Algae Review is a publication of Atelier LUMA's Algae Platform dedicated to the knowledge of algae. For Atelier LUMA, the Algae Review is an educational dissemination tool, a means of communicating with our network, and of bringing together areas... Read more

On December 9th, Atelier LUMA hosted its first international Algae Summit from Arles, South of France. The Algae Summit, organized by the Algae Platform, marks the achievement of 4 years of research in the field of algae and opens up... Read more

Martino Gamper and his team started their residency at Atelier LUMA in October 2019. Their first stay in Arles, from October to December 2019, allowed them to get to know the local area and its potential, and to familiarize themselves... Read more

Atelier LUMA is participating in the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, from January 21 to 24, 2020. We are presenting the Algae Platform, launched to study the potential for algae as a substitute material in architecture and design applications.... Read more

From July 9 to July 12, the workshop “Algaetype: Materializing the landscapes of the Camargue through organic photography” took place in Arles and its region. Conceived by Atelier LUMA and the National School of Photography (Arles) and supervised by experts... Read more

From June 2019 to January 2020 Atelier LUMA has collaborated with furniture manufacturer Vitra to produce the Algues modules, designed by the Bouroullec brothers. Edited by Vitra since 2004, the Algae are normally produced by an injection-molding process, from a... Read more

— Domesticating Waves in the Netherlands | Stefan Helmreich | BOMB MAGAZINE | March 13, 2019Stefan Helmreich, Professor of Anthropology at MIT, studies how scientists understand ocean-related research. In this essay, he tells his personal experience of Waterwolf 2016, a... Read more

— What is Above is What is Below | Daniel Fernández Pascual, Alon Schwabe | e-flux architecture | May 21, 2019 Cooking Sections is a duo of artist-researchers formed by Daniel Fernandez Pascual and Alon Schawbe. Their practice focuses on the... Read more

Participate ! Weaving workshop of rice straw to protect the sand dunes of the Piemansion beach. From 8 to 12 JULY 2019, from 9am to 1pm in the Salle polyvalente of Salin-de-Giraud and on the Piemanson East beach. The workshop is accessible to... Read more

— Tribute to plant time | France Culture | La Compagnie des poètes by Manou Farine | May 10, 2019 Manou Farine welcomes Marc Jeanson, head of the collections of the National Herbarium of the Paris Natural History Museum, co-author of... Read more

— Donna Haraway: "Our existence depends on our ability to live together" (Manifesto of companion species) | by Christine Marcandier | Diacritik | 26 March 2019 This article introduces Donna Haraway's research methodology as Professor Emerita in the Department of Humanities... Read more

Atelier LUMA is a laboratory that charts the Mediterranean community of Arles, in the Camargue wetlands region, as a work site for design and production, and as a resource for creative ideas and collective intelligence. The initiative tests out new... Read more

— A Journey Into the Animal Mind | by Ross Andersen | The Atlantic | March 2019 Through the story of his journey to India, Ross Andersen, discusses the philosophy of the Jaïns known for their non-violent relationship with animals.... Read more

Atelier Luma will be in Milan during the “Broken Nature” Triennale from 1st March to 1st September 2019.... Read more

— Bringing the Kitchen Out of the House | by Anna Puigjaner | Overgrowth, e-flux | February, 11, 2019 Architect Anna Puigjaner pursue her research on kitchenless cities with a new case study on the consequences of kitchen externalization in... Read more

— The first digital manufacturing laboratory for architecture and design in Africa | By Salvatore Peluso | Domus | December 27, 2018 This article is an interview with Paolo Cascone, founder of COdesignLab and director of the African Fabbers School. The... Read more

— Cooking Sections Explains Their Efforts to Adapt to Changing Ecosystems Through Food and Architecture | Archinect | October 4, 2018 At low tide, a cluster of cages emerge from beneath the recessing waters of Loch Portree. The emptying water gives... Read more

LUMA Arles presents the 3rd edition of Luma Days, 22-25 May 2019 Each year, LUMA Days considers a theme linked to the preoccupations of the foundation and that can make a social impact. In May 2017, LUMA Days #1 developed five... Read more

This questionnaire was originally submitted to five international designers, including Charles Eames and Joe Colombo, by curator Yolande Amic, in preparation for the Museum of Decorative Arts' inaugural exhibition "What is Design?" in 1969. Deeply influenced by its time, the... Read more

— A Civic Leg | Par Riya Patel | Disegno#19 | July 2018 In this article, Designo undertakes a case study of London suburban district Wealdstone. The population is known for its anti-social and drug-related criminal behaviour, mainly among young... Read more

— Halletmek. The Turkish art of speeding up design processes By Regine | We Make MoneyNot Art | October 1, 2018 This two-part article focuses on Turkish vernacular art and particularly on the concept of Halletmek. This popular Turkish expression refers... Read more

Every year since 2008 hundreds of design experts from around the world nominate the most innovative and thought-provoking designs from the past 12 months. This year it will possible to discover the top picks across fashion, architecture, digital, transport, product... Read more

— Losing Earth : the decade we almost stopped climate change By Nathaniel Rich | New York Times | August 1, 2018 This Narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the... Read more

This questionnaire was originally submitted to five international designers, including Charles Eames and Joe Colombo, by curator Yolande Amic, in preparation for the Museum of Decorative Arts' inaugural exhibition "What is Design?" in 1969. Deeply influenced by its time, the... Read more

— Palermo Atlas: an (incomplete) guide for Manifesta 12By Salvatore Peluso | Domus | June 16, 2018 Drawing on the « Planetary Garden » concept by French botanist Gilles Clément, the 12th edition explores Palermo as an historical Mediterranean laboratory for... Read more

Thriving in the marshes of the Camargue, reed – called sagne, in local French – is a wild plant with a long-standing tradition of winter harvest. It has long been used in a variety of ways, woven and patched together... Read more

— Hidden Labor and the Delight of Otherness: Design and Post-Capitalist PoliticsBy Tom Holert | E-flux | June 2010 Written by the art historian, writer, curator and artist Tom Holert, this article questions the meaning of design and its place in... Read more

The Design Miami event based in Basel, Switzerland, is a global design forum. This fair brings together many of the most influential collectors, gallery, designers, curators and critics of the design culture. This year, from June 11-17, 2018 Atelier LUMA... Read more

The next days, Kristof Vrancken, professor and experimental photographer, is in residency at Atelier LUMA. Specialist of the anthotype process—which consists in creating a picture from photosensitive components present in some plants—he came to experiment it with a brand new... Read more

The pavilions project presented at the Milan Design Week began with a question launched by WeWork during the first Luma Days in May 2016. Can a global business use local knowledge and resources in high volume whilst remaining economically competitive? After... Read more

In the wake of a rising global interest for resilient cities and water management issues related to human habitat, and building on “Jean Prouvé, the better days” exhibition, Atelier LUMA initiates a masterclass on floodproof demountable architecture and self construction. ... Read more

This questionnaire was originally submitted to five international designers, including Charles Eames and Joe Colombo, by curator Yolande Amic, in preparation for the Museum of Decorative Arts' inaugural exhibition "What is Design?" in 1969. Deeply influenced by its time, the... Read more

The second edition of Atelier LUMA’s Social Club took place on January 25th, during which designer Coralie Gourguechon presented her project “Paper Electronics”. As findings show that 50 million tons of electronic waste is created every year, the project conducts... Read more

This questionnaire was originally submitted to five international designers, including Charles Eames and Joe Colombo, by curator Yolande Amic, in preparation for the Museum of Decorative Arts' inaugural exhibition "What is Design?" in 1969. Deeply influenced by its time, the... Read more

Hackathon with Festival Databit.me #7 2017 guests in collaboration with our designers in residency,Coralie Gourguechon, Jesse Howard, and Thibault Brevet. The idea? Try to play music on a paper synthesizer with a robotic arm, such as those used in the... Read more

Following the discovery of our work space and our production tools, the 17th of September 2017 our visitors had the chance to attend a participatory workshop with three Atelier LUMA designers in residence. Thomas Vailly, Thomas Pausz and Gardar Eyjolfsson... Read more

Atelier Luma invited artist Eric van Hove to imagine, in the context of Arles, a prototype based on his Morocco-based Mahjouba Initiative: a reinvented, decentralized, and relational production model for manufacturing electric mopeds, made by craftsmen and 3D printers, for... Read more

Since the end of July, Atelier LUMA has been hosting creative researcher and designer Karlijn Sibbel, who is visiting us from the Netherlands in order to continue researching and experimenting with Camarguaise salt. Karlijn is currently pursuing a double master’s... Read more

Designer Antoine Boudin has been working within the context of Provence for more than ten years, mainly researching the potential of the local canne. We caught up with him to understand better the project he is developing in the context... Read more

Answering our questions over email in the aftermath of the LUMA Days, cultural activist Lucia Babina discusses the inception, discoveries, and future of one of Atelier LUMA’s most socially-minded projects, Griffeuille Food Circle. ... Read more

This project seeks an alternative to the throwaway mentality that generates fifty million tonnes of electrical household waste every year. ✚ Listen to Coralie Gourguechon's podcast recorded at Social Club #2 ... Read more

The week of May 22-27 brought the first edition of LUMA Days to Parc des Ateliers. LUMA Days is a public engagement platform located at the intersection of art, design, technology, activism and ecology that brought together a wide array... Read more

On the lead-up to the first Atelier LUMA open house, one of the most fascinating displays is the one set up for the Algae Lab project. Here, amidst the buzz of busy 3D printers and bubbling vials, designer Maartje Dros,... Read more

In anticipation of Atelier LUMA’s public opening during the first edition of LUMA days, the space at the Mécanique Générale has been given new life and sense of cohesion. The Atelier LUMA workshop has been furnished with a series of... Read more

Yesterday morning the Table of Contents arrived at the Mécanique. We sat down with Jon Stam of Commonplace Studio, one of the designers of this novel interface for the Atelier LUMA digital archive.... Read more

The Salt workshop, a programmatic collaboration between Atelier LUMA and Dutch architect Eric Geboers, has concluded today. Designers and architects from Israel, the Netherlands, Italy, France and the United States worked together for five days, experimenting with salt through the... Read more

Hélène Degand, an industrial heritage expert, visited the Mécanique Générale in the week before Luma days to provide further insight into the history of the Parc des Ateliers. She spoke with Brynjar Sigurðarson to discuss the details of the approximately... Read more

From the use of a high-tech robotic arm to 3D scanning and digital design, Fitting stones sets the stage for a brand new way of administering and rehabilitating historic and cultural heritage. ... Read more

On the occasion of the 2017 Fuorisalone, during this year’s Milan Design Week, Atelier LUMA first presented itself to the public, on a celebratory occasion that took place at the Offprint independent publisher’s book fair, at Atelier Clerici.... Read more

The Colour Geographies project was kicked-off by a group of students from the Design Academy Eindhoven, mentored by Henriëtte Waal and Brecht Duijf from BuroBelèn. The group visited Arles and the Camargue, exploring the region’s colour palette, tales and potential.... Read more