The Atelier is a design office centered around the creative activities of Athime de Crecy. Its ambition is to create an aesthetic as well as a practical appetite for processes and objects aiming toward a bifurcation both in technologies and in lifestyles able to mitigate the impacts of production on our environment. Never has applied creation had a clearer and more ambitious research agenda, or a more pressing problem to solve. Just as the reconstruction of post-war Europe led to the emergence of a radically innovative aesthetic, so this new project requires us all to find the adequate forms. To date, we believe there is no more exciting challenge to take up.
Informed by scientific research and current knowledge, we are pursuing an number of strategies in the course of our projects, with a view to propose objects that can either replace standards with less environmental impact - as in the case of projects such as the
Fresnel Family lamps, which use a fraction of the components needed in a classical articulated desk lamp, or the
Hem cups, which offer a double-wall insulating function without the need for any welding-, either to provide an essential service for a fraction of the energy consumption of existing products - as achieved, for example, by the
Rømer heating unit or even to offer alternative typologies with a perspective of sobriety - as with the
CEB scooter, a lightweight electric alternative for everyday mobility.
In terms of furniture, the aim is to develop designs that will make spaces multi-purpose and versatile, since the concrete impact of the end of energy abundance is mechanically the shrinkage of habitable space available per person. In all things, it’s a question of limiting the use of fossil materials, of decorative parts, of fragile constructions, of reducing transported volumes, of favoring simple implementations, of creating value through semantics and imagery rather than through a profusion of means... All these are issues with which design has become extremely familiar over the course of its history, and we are convinced that the imperative need for energy-constrained product surges us to push this mindset forward to explore the forms of a future that can and must materialize in other ways than deprivation and penury.
Whether certain activities grow so that others can decline, it is certain that those who apply themselves to imagining and manufacturing objects that are economical, intelligent and beautiful because they are well thought-out will have all the more tasks to accomplish.
