Critical spatial practice Exutoire sees architecture as one instrument among several. Founded in Oslo in 2019 by Paul-Antoine Lucas and Bui Quy Son, the now Hanoi-based studio works across design, building, curating, teaching, writing and publishing, with an interest in social, spatial and material justice. Its subjects range from queer methodologies and trans-normativity in public space to housing rights and collective life.
Who: Exutoire
Lucas and Son are both HMONP-licensed architects in France and are pursuing Practice Research PhDs at RMIT University. They have taught at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, TU Darmstadt, Chulalongkorn University and RMIT Vietnam, and will co-curate the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale with Céline Zimmer. Their first book, Housing, Micropolitics, and Pedagogies: Designing and Practicing Collectivity, was published by Ruby Press in 2025.
22YB1
‘We’re driven by the idea that architecture and society intimately inform and influence each other,’ they say. In built work, that becomes a preference for what the duo call ‘straightforwardness, robustness, and fun’: minimal interventions, durable materials and room for lived reality to remain visible. They are especially drawn to renovation and adaptation, treating existing buildings as evidence of social life rather than raw material for erasure.
Inside the property
What: 22YB1
22YB1, completed between 2023 and 2025, is Exutoire’s house and studio in central Hanoi. It renovates an early-1990s tube house, the long, narrow housing type that evolved when state-subsidised living shifted to the market-oriented real estate sector following Vietnam's 1986 economic reforms (known as Đổi Mới). Here, the plot is only 3m wide by 12m deep, across three and a half storeys; a compact urban condition with familiar problems: darkness, poor ventilation and limited durability.
Exutoire’s intervention is surgical. The staircase moves from the middle to the rear; transverse partitions disappear; rooms open up so air and light can travel. The front façade keeps traces of the old house, while the rear is rebuilt in glass brick for ambient light. New windows and an open stairwell improve cross and stack ventilation.
The material palette has a useful bluntness: granito, raw concrete, galvanised steel, corrugated metal, white paint in different gloss levels, yellow tiles, royal blue cabinets and lacquer-red handrails. The ground floor becomes Exutoire’s studio; above, the house is arranged for non-nuclear living, guests and friends. A bas-relief on the façade marks its address and completion date, giving the renovation a civic note as well as a domestic one.
Why: Architects Directory 2026
When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.
This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.
