ABSTRACT
It is over 15 years since the French architects Lacaton & Vassal worked on their project for the Léon Aucoc square, in a residential, working class district of Bordeaux near the Gare Saint-Jean. The conception of this project now stands as something of a foundational narrative in the early work of the practice, alongside influential private housing projects, such as the villas Lapatie (1993) and Coutras (2000). Lacaton & Vassal were included in a city-wide programme of design intervention commissioned by the Bordeaux city council. Their response to the commission was published as a project report in an edition of the Spanish journal 2G dedicated to the work of Lacaton & Vassal. 2 The text of the article briefly describes a process of observation, evaluation and local consultation which concluded in the decision that the Léon Aucoc square was ‘already beautiful’ and that nothing new was necessary except an improved programme of maintenance.
