Labtop is a multidisciplinary office that focuses on architecture as a system of signs. Directed by Thomas Sériès, Labtop gathers graduated architects, all dedicated to this specific issue in the making of architecture: visual translation and the promotion of the project through 3D artwork and video. In continuation of Auralab, Labtop produces architectural renderings. But we felt Auralab was overtaken at some point when we wanted to go further in the part we play during the process of the architectural project. Learning from our experiences with so many architects, we've been driven to explore new fields of our own, and we more often participate in competitions and build our own designs.
Convincing jury members involves more than just 3D models and rendering. What is really at stake is to convey information and emotion. We're not that much into the formal appearance of things. We consider the projects with an emotional edge, searching for the potential rather than the reality. You need to give the public the kind of visible signals that it needs to understand what is happening. While making an image we never lose sight of the project itself and the purpose of the image, which is essentially giving a clear explanation of the strongest architectural intentions. A beautiful image might not always be a clever one. We are constantly adjusting to get the image fine-tuned to be understood by jury members, or whatever the image is needed for. A clever image is a useful one. It's not that much a matter of the software and the hardware people use, a good image is really a sum of well-aimed shots.
The exciting thing about our practice is the huge amount of information that gets to us and the diversity of project scales, of creative process, of positions and personalities we have to deal with.
We work on making projects noticeable and explicit, since, for each of us individually at Labtop, the substance of the project, the research, the commitments and the fresh attempts, is what we're looking for.
