Stories

How can algae-based initiatives be a tool for transition towards a bio-based and circular society? What is the potential of algae for technological, environmental and social benefits? How can we avoid that the growing algae industry follow an only-profit based... 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, 2019Manou 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 Algae Geographies investigates new values for wetlands as incubators for locally grown biomaterials. As one of the research directions within Atelier Luma, the... 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 2019Each 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

Luma Arles développe un nouveau projet de plateforme pédagogique nomade conçue dans le cadre d’Atelier Luma, son programme de recherche en design. Cet outil médiation se présente sous la forme d’une plateforme hippomobile, qui sillonnera les routes de Camargue pour aller... 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

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

— 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 National School of Photography, Arles, and Atelier Luma invite you to take part in the Algaetype photography workshop. Created by Kristof Vrancken, the Algaetype experimental photography process uses algae to design paper and extract pigments. Over the course of 4... 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

Climate and the geographical environment are the most basic elements in terms of how people live and basic to the issue of hospitality. In the wake of a rising global interest for resilient cities and water management issues related to... 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 a... Read more

On the occasion of the Milan Design Week, Atelier Luma will present a selection of projects at Palazzo Clerici, a historic building located in the heart of Milan which is occupied by HAY for this edition of the Design Week,... 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

From the start, Atelier Luma was founded with the ambition to become a far-reaching network of individuals, some of which in Arles and the Camargue region, but many of them located in various other places in Europe and the world.... Read more

Hackathon with Festival Databit.me #7 2017 guests in collaboration with our designers in residency, Coralie Gourguechon (Paper Electronics project) Thibault Brevet (Fitting Stones project) and Jesse Howard (Table of Content project). The idea? Try to play music on a paper synthesizer with... Read more

John Thackara is a British-born writer, advisor and public speaker who uses his international travel experiences to inform his work on sustainable design and development. Over the past decades he has immersed himself in varying contexts where he’s met and... Read more

Although Atelier Luma is guided explicitly by practices of making, meeting people and exchanging ideas, we are also guided implicitly by more abstract concepts and theoretical frameworks. One of these is “ecological solidarity,” a novel concept with a local origin... 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

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 program... 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

On the 30th of June, some members of the Atelier Luma team went on an excursion to the site of Tour du Valat, a local research institute for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands and one of our main collaborators. The... 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.  — Can you share your thoughts on the... 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. — How was this project conceived?  Simon de Bakker... 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

In collaboration with the Colour Geographies project, local photographer Jean Emmanuel Roché has opened his archive of stunning images of Arles and the Camargue wetlands, and allowed us to unveil to a wider audience some of the stunning snapshots he... 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. On the evening... 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. Through... Read more