Lina Ghotmeh's Hermès workshop in France narrates the power of the hand

"Precision—the quality of what is calculated, and measured, provides unequivocal information. It is the keyword and the main act that guided our design of the Hermès Workshops' building in France," expounds French Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, on her masterful design for luxury fashion house Hermès' new workshop for making leather products in Louviers, within France’s Normandy region. Known for infusing their ‘humane’ projects with wisdom, resilience, and nourishment, Lina Ghotmeh-Architecture evinces romanticism within expressive materiality, articulating the industrial building with ‘galloping’ brick arches, an apposite homage to the lithe movements and graceful strength of the horse, a noted graphic articulating the brand’s logo.

"The design of the project is a tribute to the horse, this extraordinary being. Besides the fact that the brick construction tells of a local material, made from the earth of the place, the natural span of a brick breakthrough is an arch. The design of the facade is then finely orchestrated by these galloping arches from side to side, recalling the lightness of horse jumps in its proportions,” says Ghotmeh.

Elaborating on the genesis of the low-carbon leather production facility constructed on an industrial brownfield site, she shares, “I was invited by Hermès, as well as three other agencies, to compete for this manufacturing project. I was very touched to learn that I had won this project with the unanimity of the jury of this competition. This project emerges as a reflection on the history and values of Hermès with craft as a starting point and as the end point. Before drawing a line, I carried out with my atelier multiple ‘excavations’: research on the history of this place, on the local resources, the particularities of this environment, of the ground of Normandy with its wet, clayey earth, ready to be modelled.”

According to the design team, the construction and implantation of the contemporary architecture, four years in the making, is in sync with the site, and meets luxury brand Ateliers Hermès’ 'exemplarity and rigour of craftsmanship.' Finding distinction in its horizontality, the French architecture’s expansive square plan also cites the famous square silk scarves for which the high-end luxury brand is famous.

Acts of Precision

“The hand’s precision and its gestures on leatherwork are transcribed in the drawing of the building, its implantation, its qualities, as well as its dimensions, sustainability, timelessness, and evolutive capacities. These new leather workshops emerge from the exact site’s outline. They are drawn by the nearby nature and are placed on the most remarkable parcel of the site—from the perspective of the great region’s altimetry. Its orthogonal grid, (is) orchestrated by its internal functioning, unfolding on the land, meeting the ground, encompassing the landscape, and dialoguing with the territory,” continues the Lebanon-born architect, who is now based in Paris.  

The structure of this building is marked by the power of the hand, allowing simultaneously the specific and the universal. In between alignment and organicity, the architecture is discrete and blends itself with the landscape’s poetry. – Lina Ghotmeh

The spanning arches follow the wooden frames of the 6,200 sqm industrial architecture that features a context-led approach as ‘a living space for its artisans’—"As a manifest form of brick construction, the arch incarnates movement, and evokes the gallops of a horse. Structural, fine, and coupled, these bricks gallop along the building’s envelope, from span to span—they are orchestrated at nine meters long intervals, drawing a perfect square from face to face—the plan of this factory,” explains Ghotmeh.

The arched spans in turn form expansive bay windows, letting in a ‘precise’ influx of natural light, abundant, diffused, and comforting at the same time, and lessening the contextual architecture’s dependence on artificial lighting, heating, and ventilation—heat for the building is garnered through geothermal energy, while 2,300 sqm of solar panels employed generate power and a rain water harvesting system takes care of high water needs. The apertures in the ceiling, aligned to the north invite a ‘museal’ lighting into the warm interior design, impeccably illuminating the leather goods being fashioned by their creators, ‘accentuating life and vibration’ within the brick-clad sustainable architecture.  

Moreover, the former barren landscape was boosted with more than seven acres of lush gardens conceived masterfully by Belgian landscape architect Erik Dhont, who dutifully employed the soil excavated for the building’s foundations. Designed to preserve existing biodiversity and planned with a system for recovering rainwater and guiding it back to the land’s water table, the intervention also retained many of the prevailing trees on site.

"I thought of the architecture of this project in a bioclimatic way, responding to natural resources, already thinking of an architecture designed intelligently to reduce the energy needs of the building. With my team of engineering and specialised design offices, we worked on several energy simulations of the project to optimise consumption and natural lighting. We have also opted for the use of renewable energy (geothermal energy and solar panels); we calculated the carbon impact of all the materials, and more. With my workshop, I started research on materials and chose the one with the least (embodied) carbon while thinking of producing an architecture capable of beauty,” elaborates the French architect, who, evoking her past life in Beirut, sees her practice as an 'archaeology of the future': each project evolves from her research, in symbiosis with nature, as an expression of the essence of the raw material from which it is crafted.

“The dialogue between the craftspersons and their creations is now possible. Fusion between the object and the artisan, between the artisan and the space, between space and landscape,” shares the Paris-based firm. The new Maroquinerie de Louviers will host 260 leatherwork artisans who will fashion bags, leather goods, saddles, and bridles for Hermès, who have set up their first equestrian workshop outside of Paris. “This is the first time that the Hermès manufacturing profession dedicated to horse riding has moved outside the Faubourg Saint Honoré in Paris,” Ghotmeh reiterates.

The artisanal ‘power of the hand’ as an architectural manifestation

Built in 500,000 ‘artisanal’ bricks, made from the local earth sourced from a few kilometres from the site, the construction of Maroquinerie de Louviers ‘narrates the power of the hand.’ Announcing both ‘resistance and lightness,’ these bricks are carefully laid by companions and master masons. When asked how the artisans reacted to the building taking shape, Ghotmeh shares, “I was very touched by the feedback from the craftsmen during the construction and design of the project, who told me that I had the feeling of going on vacation while living or discovering the project... the feeling of discovering a cloister, a demanding place memory, a place where one feels good. I designed this project for them, for their well-being.”

Once complete, Ghotmeh went on to occupy a small office several times ‘to feel the life of the building,’ to experience its deep sense of place. She proceeds to share how good humour, moments of laughter and conviviality are now laced as the building's materials, just as the wood, brick, earth, and mortar. “I hope that the softness of the interior spaces allows this comfort to continue and engages the artisans in positive relationships. In addition, throughout the day, the sound of the leather working tools transforms into music, thanks to the cosy spaces with the acoustic panels covering the walls and ensuring sensory comfort in the place.”

Ghotmeh clarifies that with this project, she wanted to upgrade an industrial wasteland. “Surrounded by nature and extraordinary hillsides, the site remains magnificent, and I think that you have to sublimate the beauty in a place when you build. Through the architecture of this manufacturing facility, I (tried) to propose an architecture, a timeless semantics to a place of production. You can think of it as a museum, a cultural centre, a residence, or a factory—the main thing for me is that its architecture is virtuous and that it emanates beauty, that it can tell its environment, and especially the history of the Hermès house which settled there. It is essential that it is appropriate, that it feels good,” she believes.

Like 'an archaeology of the future,' this building literally emerges from the memory of its place, on the remains of a Magdalenian hearth attesting to the relationship between humans and their tools. It invites nature at its heart, drawing time between the lines of architecture and the sinuous landscape remodelled by the excavated earth of the site. – Lina Ghotmeh

Lines lead to the entrance of the brick architecture, where visitors are embraced by an open courtyard centred by an oak tree, and leading to the internal square—a choreographed meeting point. Here, a gathering place of dialogue is established between artisans under the wooden spanning beams, decorated by the work of the artist Emmanuel Saulnier, suspended in this ‘plaza’ with large needles interlacing in movement, and evocative of the horses galloping and dressing the building’s skin. “This movement also echoes the gestures of the hands at work, as crafts-makers handle colours, under the light bathing the large volumes of the different workshops,” she continues.

Operating towards high environmental considerations, the new Hermès leather workshops are drawn at each step by its surroundings. Described as a ‘passive building’ which is significantly low in its carbon footprint, the workshops are positive in energies (E4C2) and take nothing incidentally, as it makes out of each of its elements, an environmental resource, as France’s first industrial architecture to achieve the nation’s highest environmental certifications of high energy and carbon performance rating, the first low-carbon, positive-energy factory. Commenting on the impressive feat, Ghotmeh relays, “This project was born with a very fine ambition, that of building the first low-carbon, positive-energy factory in France, labelled ‘E4C2.’ It is an environmental and architectural technical feat since it is also a place that is dedicated to production, and therefore, needs a lot of energy and electricity to operate.”  

“Leather, earth, brick, and wood, this building lives in synergy with nature. Bioclimatic, it takes what nature offers it without asking too much of it. Its energies are renewable, (and) low carbon. It is a positive E4C2 building like all this human adventure. It proves that we can always do well and better thanks to our perseverance and the wise collaboration of disciplines,” says Ghotmeh, who welcomed praise and contemplation for her convivial design of the prestigious 2023 Serpentine Pavilion this summer in London.

Project Details

Name: Maroquinerie de Louviers (Louviers Leather Goods)
Location: Louviers, France
Area: 6,200 sqm
Year of completion: 2023
Client: Hermès International
Architect: Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture
Consultants: Franck Boutté Consultants (Environment-Fluids); Erik Dhont (Landscape); ATEVE (Roads system and urban public utilities); EVP (Structure); Clarity (Acoustic); AE75 (Economist); Namixis (SIS); BEGC (Cuisine)