Georges Reuter Architectes - Give the customer the desire to be surprised
"There is no good project without a good owner". This is what Luc Weber and Tobiasz Lebkowski, associate architects at Georges Reuter Architectes, like to think. Within this nine-person structure, where everyone plays a key role - "as in a band" - the customer is at the center of attention. This to fulfill an objective: to deliver a quality good that looks like him.
Born at the end of the Second World War, the Georges Reuter Architects office was founded by Pierre Reuter. In the 1980s, his son, Georges, takes over, before stepping aside (although he remains linked to the office as a partner) in 2015, and let three long-time employees take the lead operations : Luc Weber, Tobiasz Lebkowski and Paul Luzio.
Transcribe the customer's desires
At Georges Reuter Architectes, during the first meeting with a client, listening is essential. "We hear the requests, the customer's ideas. We are immersed in it to be able to propose a project that is in line with its needs "says Tobiasz Lebkowski.
To meet the needs of the customer, but while respecting the urban environment already built, as Luc Weber mentions: "We have to create an object consistent with the environment in which it is implanted. A new home must not be related to a UFO falling from the sky. "
A responsibility therefore, to preserve the quality of a district.
Among the clients of the office, individuals, but also real estate developers and municipalities in Luxembourg. No distinction is made between one or the other, all are treated in the same way. "We bring the same care and quality to all projects, no matter how small," commented Luc Weber.
Accompanying every moment
With their experience, the employees of Georges Reuter Architects know that many factors (delays, administrative formalities, authorizations, etc.) can stress those who build or renovate. To make things easier, Tobiasz Lebkowski recommends choosing his architect and, above all, establishing a relationship of trust with him.
"Mutual trust must be established from the first contact. What's more, we need to exchange, the relationships we have to be alive, "adds Luc Weber.
"The customer must be passionate, and stay open-minded," said Tobiasz Lebkowski, "our mission is to bring him full satisfaction, by offering him something he did not think about. In short, he must accept to be surprised. "
Being in the trend, without doing too much
Georges Reuter Architects knows that from now on, a construction project involves an individual for a long time:
"Before, people took a loan for 10 or 15 years. Now it can go up to 30 years. It's almost a whole professional life, it's beyond any other kind of long-term commitment, "admits Luc Weber.
Faced with this observation, the architect's responsibility is all the greater. A leitmotif premium, "to be of today without appearing old tomorrow". A clever mix, which must be found in the middle confesses Tobiasz Lebkowski: "We may be proposing an architecture that is less fashionable, but that will not be outdated in the next 5 years. The ideal is that the good, in 20 or 30 years, does not distort in the landscape ".
Large-scale projects
Among the achievements of Georges Reuter Architects, the Artemis Residence, located in the district of Grünewald in Kirchberg, and completed in 2012. An interesting urban exercise, which has a particularity. "Each floor can be arranged differently, they are modular. For example, a floor can house a dwelling with three bedrooms, while the one above can be equipped with two studios, without the structure of the building being impacted "notes Tobiasz Lebkowski. Another interesting point to raise is the layout of the public space within the building. Thus, for the inhabitants to feel good, corridors and staircases have been arranged so that natural light filters in.
At present, the office is also in charge of two large-scale projects. The first concerns the construction of a multi-family housing building in the Mühlenbach district, on the edge of the Bambësch forest. "An interesting residential project because the building follows the typology of the land, which is sloping. A big challenge! There he starts to come out of the ground, he is at the level of the shell.
The other project concerns the construction of a new nursery in Luxembourg-city, Marshall Street. The continuity of a project that dates, as told Tobiasz Lebkowski: "This crib will be built next to another crib imagined by our office in the 1980s. It is a refreshing project because it brings us to slip into the skin of a child, to create a bright and friendly space that will suit him, but also in that of the staff of the nursery, to understand his needs for to carry out an efficient work ".
Challenges for the future
If Luxembourg is one of the first countries in Europe to oblige, from 2017, new constructions to meet the standard of a passive house class A, Luc Weber believes that the country should go even further, and set up a regulation in favor of ecology, "so that, later, one can transform a house without having thousands of unusable inert waste".
Another major challenge for the Grand Duchy, preserving green areas by densifying urban areas. All by creating public spaces designed to develop the social life of the inhabitants, more and more locked up at home. A problem that the architects of Georges Reuter Architects are ready to solve thanks to their know-how.
Contact
Georges Reuter Architects
1 Paul Henkes Street
L-1710 Luxembourg
Phone : +352 443334
Fax: +352 455069
Email: info@gra.lu
www.gra.lu