AURORES
Florencia Collo
Mathieu Lucas
Mathieu, Florencia, and Théophile share a friendship and a common interest in fragile spaces—those at the blurry boundary between inside and outside, architecture, garden and climate.
Mathieu is a landscape architect. A graduate of the École d’Architecture de Versailles, he worked with Bureau Bas Smets in Brussels and BASE in Paris on large-scale planning and territorial projects. In 2018, he earned the title of Paysagiste concepteur from the French Ministry for Ecological Transition. A resident of the Villa Medici (2018–2019), he conducted research on the relationship between Roman landscapes and atmosphere.
Florencia graduated in architecture from the University of Buenos Aires and completed an MSc in Sustainable Environmental Design at the AA in London. In 2016, she co-founded Atmos Lab, an environmental design consultancy, where she leads projects and advises architects such as Lacaton & Vassal, OFFICE KGDVS, Baukuh, Caruso St John, and Bruther. She teaches Environmental Design at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and is an active member of the PLEA network.
Théophile is an architect, graduated from an architecture school in Paris, landscape school in Versailles and the philosophy university in Nanterre. His practice combines writing, drawing, and design. He contributes to journals (PLI, POLYGONE) and participates in exhibitions (Biennale of Versailles, Villa Noailles, arc en rêve). In 2024, he co-founded CDLT with Alexis de La Taille, a practice exploring interstitial spaces and their potential within late capitalist society.
The word AURORE (meaning ‘dawn’ in French) refers to that fragile moment of the day when the sun has not yet crossed the horizon, but the first glimmers of light begin to appear. The sky is pink for everyone, yet it is tinged with a diverse array of emotions depending on the memories it evokes: joy, sorrow, longing, regret, desire, or hope.To speak of AURORES in the plural is to acknowledge that a physical space can be read, observed, and interpreted in countless ways—that multiplying perspectives is essential to grasping the complexity of reality.
AURORES is an editorial project that proposes to approach architecture as a complex phenomenon, irreducible to a single interpretation. Each issue begins with a specific site—an architectural work or a garden—around which a wide range of disciplines are invited to converge. From photography to architecture, philosophy to climate readings, ten contributors are asked to offer their perspectives, reflections, or evocations of a particular place.
Through its successive issues, AURORES seeks to assemble a collection of fragile spaces situated at the blurred boundary between interior and exterior: an hidden bamboo garden in the Tschumi’s park of La Villette, a shaded gallery in a Medicean garden in Florence, a brick platform in a modest Swiss garden… The journal posits that these spaces—through their relationship to the elements, to various forms of life, and to human uses—offer a way to question and deconstruct the western modern conception of dwelling. In a depleted capitalist society, where the exploitation of the world and its resources occurs at the expense of climate and communities, legitimising such models calls for new ways of thinking and designing.