Agathe Lavaud – VOLTA
Agathe Lavaud is a French architect and interior designer, and the founder of Volta, a Paris-based studio established in 2016. Working across architecture and interior design, her practice is defined by a refined dialogue between contemporaneity and tradition, with a strong attention to detail, materiality, and spatial harmony.
After studying at ESAG Penninghen and the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marne-la-Vallée, including a period of study in Italy, Lavaud worked with renowned studios such as Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Wilmotte & Associés, Vidalenc Architectes, and Thierry Lemaire Architecture before establishing her own practice. Through Volta, she approaches each project through a sensitive and contextual process, developing spaces shaped by thoughtful research into volume, craftsmanship, and the existing environment.
Interview
I was born in Rennes, Brittany, France. I’ve lived in Paris all my life, and I certainly consider myself more of a Parisian.
Yes, always. In fact, I don’t even feel like I’m working.
My mother made all kinds of creations during my childhood. I always saw her using her hands to create, from framing to drawing to floral art. I think that’s the first art form that comes to mind. For the real world of Art, of course, the Museums. Growing up in Paris, I had access to them as a child.
I think it’s the encounter with the material “cork”. By dint of proposing it as a covering in our interior design projects (without much success!) I began to create with this material, in the free form of furniture.
I think my process is fairly classic: I draw a lot by hand. I have images, shapes, colors, and sensations in my head and in my dreams, which I put down on paper.
I read a lot of the art press, and I’m generally curious about the world of art and design, which inevitably also influences my creative process.
Aha, no day is typical! There’s a bit of everything: quiet design/creation sessions at the agency, site meetings, customer meetings, vernissages, and exhibitions. It’s a job that imposes a very changeable and irregular rhythm: I really enjoy it.
I chose cork for this first design collection for several reasons. The first was the desire to magnify it and change the image we might have of it. By developing patterns and colors, cork really takes on another dimension, almost looking like marble visually.
Then, of course, for cork’s sensitive, durable, economical, and ecological qualities.
Cork processing: the pattern is created by compressing pieces of cork from various sources: pieces of bark, offcuts of wine bottle corks, other offcuts destined for disposal, etc. This process creates unique, authentic, and singular cork sheets.
Remain free, be bold.
«Sustainable experimentation».
Aldo Rossi, Carlo Scarpa, Charlotte Perriand, Marcel Breuer, Giancarlo Piretti, Paulin.
Martin Massé, Sabine Marcellis, Bernard Dubois, Studio Ebur, Faye Toogood.
Paolo Sorrentino (film), Ossip Zadkine (sculpture), Brancusi (Sculpture), Alex Foxton (painting), Joan Miro (painting).
«Sustainable experimentation».
“Remain free, be bold.”
The Questions
(The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust.
Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are Oscar Wilde,
Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Cézanne…)
Freedom.
Deprivation of freedom.
My nostalgia.
Intolerance.
My mom.
Dancing.
Fulfilled.
Wealth.
Kindness.
Her listening skills.
–
Being a polyglot.
My age.
Being where I am today.
A cat.
By the Mediterranean, in Corsica.
–
Solitude.
Take a bath.
My listening skills, I think.
Their humor.
Sagan, Murakami.
Totoro.
–
I have no heroes.
Anne, Claire, Gabriel.
Shouting.
I don’t have any.
I don’t want to die.
Fight the good fight.
“I have images, shapes, colors and sensations in my head and in my dreams, which I put down on paper.”
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