Experiments on Urban Grounds

The Experiments' Platform is a mentorship programme designed for emerging creatives working at the intersection of architecture and spatial practice. Through a six-month process—including residencies, workshops, and public presentations—participants developed speculative projects supported by experienced mentors. The 2024 edition, curated with Theatrum Mundi, focused on bioregional urbanism and territorial design, and culminated in events in Paris and Vilnius. It also strengthened collaboration between Lithuanian and French architectural communities and facilitated international knowledge exchange.

LINA Fellows

Océane Ragoucy mentored Marta Dorotėja Lekavičiūtė, supporting her research on riverside vegetation as an architectural material. Océane also led an excursion based on her study of invisible labour in urban environments and participated in both Paris and Vilnius events—moderating in Paris and presenting her own work in Vilnius.

Ewa Effiom mentored Simona Gaigalaitė, guiding her exploration of vernacular Lithuanian wooden architecture in dialogue with Parisian pavilion culture.

Margarida Waco mentored Edgar Vladimirenko, whose project investigated the spatial transformation and political imagination of the Lithuanian countryside.

Johanna Musch contributed as an expert speaker in both Paris and Vilnius, sharing perspectives from her transdisciplinary work with the Umarell Collective.

Dimitri Szuter joined the Paris residency as an expert, where he led a short outdoor workshop and shared insights from his public space design practice.

Experiments' Platform

Organised annually since 2021, the fourth edition of the Experiments' Platform was curated by Vilius Vaitiekūnas and led by Martynas Germanavičius. The 2024 programme was developed in collaboration with Theatrum Mundi as part of the Lithuanian Season in France, initiated by the Lithuanian Culture Institute. Titled Urban Transformations: Creative Perspectives between Vilnius and Paris, the project addressed ecological and urban transformation challenges in both Lithuania and France through a programme of creative exchange.

The project consisted of a six-month mentorship programme, resulting in three unique research projects. It also included a week-long residency in Paris, where young Lithuanian architects had the opportunity to gain insight into local urban transformation processes and also meet the mentors and other experts LINA Fellows in person.

Following the research phases in Paris and back in Lithuania, a video documentary by visual artist Laurynas Skeisgiela captured the participants' creative processes and insights.

The project's final event in Paris, "Experiments on Urban Grounds", shaped by the participants' research, offered an in-depth analysis of how urban transformation affects not only city environments but also peri-urban and natural territories.

Following in 2025 May with the help of the French Institute in Lithuania, Architektūros fondas organised.

Mentorship programme and research projects 

Online and Paris, France April – October 2024

Running from late April to the end of October, the mentorship programme—launched through an open call—selected three participants: Edgar Vladimirenko, Simona Gaigelaitė, and Marta Dorotėja Lekavičiūtė. Each worked closely with a mentor from the LINA network over the course of 5–6 meetings. Margarida Waco mentored Edgar, who analysed both the French and Lithuanian rural contexts and proposed speculative political tools to support more just and imaginative development in Lithuania. Ewa Effiom supported Simona, who studied pavilion typologies and lightweight construction cultures in Paris as a reference point for rethinking public space-making in Lithuania. Océane Ragoucy guided Marta Dorotėja, whose research investigated riverside vegetation in both Paris and Vilnius—exploring its potential application as a construction material and its implications for rethinking environmental maintenance practices.

The outcome was three distinct research projects that brought Lithuanian and French urban contexts into meaningful dialogue—linking questions of territory, ecology, and community through experimental design and situated inquiry.

• Ministry of Future Urban–rural Affairs — Edgar Vladimirenko's experiment
• Living Heritage: Pivot Pavilion — Simona Gaigelaitė's experiment
• Exploring Macrophyte waste in Architecture — Marta Dorotėja Lekavičiūtė's experiment