is the story of a team of architects, urban and landscape designers
wivh comes down to 5 important years :
1985 I 1991 I 1997 I 2004 I 2009
Richez_Associés Paris, directed by Thomas Richez and Frédéric Blerot, has 25 years of experience. With more than 50 collaborators, it carries out with enthusiasm buildings projects, with a sustainable approach, of residences, offices and of public equipment, it also directs retrofitting projects in Montpellier, Bègles, Paris…
It became a speaker of reference in public spaces projects, and the leader in tramway urban design projects, with that of Le Mans in operation since 2007, and construction sites in Rheims, Orleans, Paris, and soon Brest, Bordeaux, Tours, Casablanca and Brussels …
Its know-how is acknowledged : the magazine "Ville & Transports" awarded Richez_Associés in June 2008 with its price of Engineering, for our environmental tramway designs.
In Kuala-Lumpur, sister firm Zaini dan Richez, also with 50 collaborators, develops its activity in Malaysia on many hotel and residences projects, and is working internationally, with an important streetscape project in Khartoum…
> the agency in Paris
The group is then called Dubus_Richez.
It has just taken-off : ranked 262 in the world and number 5 in France by World Architecture.
The Parisian firm and its 30 collaborators make a change of neighborhood and move to Place de la Bastille.
The pillars of ZD_R, in Kuala-Lumpur, enter the group, while the Malaysian firm finishes the detailed urban design of the core island of Putrajaya and starts the construction of 5 projects in the city, including the new City Hall.
Paris is not resting, with offices and housing projects, a development on tramway projects with those of Le Mans, Rheims and La Reunion, the arrival of the first landscape designers at the firm, and the urban design projects of Les Grisettes district in Montpellier, and that of the The Cathedral district in Evry.
Bertrand Dubus is architect advisor of the department of Alpes-Maritimes, and Thomas Richez chairs the AFEX (French Architects for Export)
These increasing overseas activities led to the creation of a new Malaysian branch of the group directed by the new malaysian and parisian associate : Zaini Zainul, architect and sculptor.
Meanwhile, the construction of the new French embassy in Singapore is under way and projects in Kuala Lumpur continue to multiply.
Starts, also in 1997, the building site of the Caisses d’Epargne HQ (12.000 m² in downtown Paris).
About fifteen collaborators work on these various projects; some invest themselves more particularly in urban design or transportation projects, a field developed for a long time by the agency, who has just been entrusted the Vaugirard development project (approximately 50.000 m² of housing and activities), and a section of Nancy tramway.
> the agency in Kuala-Lumpur
The firm becomes Dubus_Richez, and, in order to better structure the firm's intervention, vis-a-vis the crisis announced in France, it opposes an offer strategy for a weakening demand. It is the period of competitions, and the associates start looking towards Asia with the installation of the French Pavillion at the International exposition in Taejon, South Korea (1993).
That same year, Dubus_Richez was awarded the project of the new French Embassy building in Singapore.
> the French embassy in Singapore
It is the begining of the adventure...
It associates : Thomas Richez, 28 years old at the time, architect, former student of l’Ecole Polytechnique and civil engineer graduated from Ponts et Chaussées National School; Bertrand Dubus, then 38 years old, established architect and urban designer; and Edouard Francois, third member of these years of foundation and, very quickly, of growth. The young firm accumulates references in fields as varied as housing construction, offices, commercial and industrial buildings, corporate restaurantn as well as retrofitting and urban planning.
> Bertrand Dubus and Thomas Richez