Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé

Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé are architects and graduates of ENSA Versailles, where they both teach architecture. After working for OMA/Rem Koolhaas, they founded Cookies in 2015, a practice based in Paris and Rotterdam which they run together with Federico Martelli. Cookies specialises in realising cultural, architectural, scenographic, strategic and research projects. Cookies catalyses the relationship between art and architecture through a multidisciplinary dialogue between research and production, fuelled by a critical approach.  

 

Alice Grégoire and Clément Périssé were fellows in residence at Villa Medici in 2020-21, working on a project exploring the trajectory of architectural materials from their natural environment to their implementation, as well as a reflection on a definition of architecture as natural geography. At the heart of their research is the hypothesis of a vernacular concrete, which is also the theme of a book to soon be published with Polygones (Paris). Part of the material for this book comes from their collaboration with Imperial College London, Department of Materials, with whom they have studied the contemporary relevance of antique technologies.  

 

The residency at the MFO in September 2024 reflects the multiple facets of this research and the simultaneity of these investigations in France and the UK. It has enabled Alice and Clément to exchange ideas with Oxford researchers, make progress on their book and  start preparing an interdisciplinary event around it for 2025.