Constructing Practice: GRAU

Susanne Eliasson, of GRAU (Good Reasons to Afford Urbanism) talks about how urbanism is present in the studio’s architecture projects and its focus on housing. Constructing Practice traces the narratives of young firms from around the globe, featuring the participants of a Columbia GSAPP symposium that took place on November 17, 2017, and expands the conversation to include many others, to tell us how they do what they do. Hosted by GSAPP Professor Juan Herreros, principal of Estudio Herreros in Madrid.

GRAU is a creative studio based in Paris and led by partners Susanne Eliasson and Anthony Jammes. Since the founding of the studio in 2010, its architects have been working on the transformation of the Bordeaux Metropolis, exploring how different housing developments can produce urbanity. The studio has developed a strong expertise on issues related to housing through numerous urban renewal projects, strategic studies on densification, masterplanning of new districts and ongoing research on horizontal urbanism. In 2016, GRAU received the Young Planners Award from the French Ministry of Housing and Sustainable Habitat.

“Our main concern in every project that we tackle is how to create better conditions for good housing. And it relates to spatial issues of housing, to the urban forms that it generates, and also to the economic aspects.”
—Susanne Eliasson

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