Fatma Kobbi

Fatma Kobbi of l’Atelier KF in Tunisia

Tunis, Tunisia

What is your earliest memory of architecture and how old were you when you discovered it?

I studied architecture out of curiosity. When entering architecture school in the first year, the first question I asked my teacher was: "What is architecture?". He answered me: "Your hair is architecture, everything is architecture!"

After twenty years, I realize that this answer was of a capital influence on my way of undertaking in the field of architecture and in my way of seeing things. It is that I have never limited architectural work within the unique spectrum of building or construction. Although I believe in the palpable and realistic result of this work. Except that I always question the process by which it must be done and I remain in a perpetual search for the real reason to do it.

Is it personal or interpersonal satisfaction? Where does the architect's ego fit into the design for others and where are the real limits of his intervention in the lives of others? Do we have a real influence on the others life's or do we sign the happiness of some and the unhappiness of others? Are we really aware of our responsibility to design people's living environment? All these questions have crossed my mind over the years and still nest in my head. I have found the answer to some while still searching for the answer to others.

Today, in my architectural practice, I am very close to my clients, I ask them lots of questions and devote a lot of time to diagnose their order. In short, I do a painstaking job to understand in a fair and precise way their needs so as to be able to formulate the corresponding technical answers.

Fatma’s novel: Le chantier de ma vie

Did you know any architects as a child and if so, how did they influence you?

I did not know any architects in my childhood and strangely I never thought about this profile when I was a child. Perhaps this conceptual void later favored the search for my own vision of architecture.

On the other hand, I was very passionate about books. I really liked reading and integrating the imaginary book's worlds. Then, a little older, I started to write. I was building some kind of story structure before I wrote, I saw the words as things that I could handle as I wished. I didn't mean to write perfect language more than to experiment through words and their impact.

As I studied architecture, this intimate link with literature seemed more and more obvious to me. Reading had become my perfect source of information, inspiration, reflection for architecture. Vice versa, after years, it was architecture that led me to write and publish a novel book called "Le chantier de ma vie".

This is a book which speaks of sentimental life experience in a vocabulary drawn from construction and architecture.

Have you visited important buildings designed by architects and what impact do they have on you?

MAXXI by Zaha Hadid Architects. Photography by Kurt Cotoaga on Unsplash

Visiting projects designed by well-known architects had a direct impact on my own way of designing. it's an immersive and inclusive lesson to consume a project that we had seen in magazines, through photos, general views and diagrams. Of course, these elements inform a lot about the project, but to living it is something else. 

Today, I'm certain that the most relevant information is that of user experience. I remember once visiting the Museum of 21st Century Art (MAXXI) in Rome designed by the late great architect Zaha Hadid. I was very excited to visit this project and left with lots of souvenirs bought from the museum shop. 

However, what I remember first is this feeling of crushing that I had at the building's entrance. An imposing concrete block overlooked the pedestrian access plaza and cantilevered several meters above the entrance. The element expressed a strong gesture and denoted a distinguished architectural expression. But - crossing this square - I felt like an embarrassment, an impression of being squeezed and that made me very uncomfortable. Since then, I pay much more attention to the consideration of the architectural project on a human scale and I underline as much the importance of thinking it in its macro dimension as in micro.

Did you have any work experience in an architecture studio and how did this confirm your choice of career?

During the university course, I did several internships in different structures ranging from the private agency to the administrative structure linked to the projects of the Ministry of Equipment in Tunisia. 

For my eight-month end-of-study internship, I was part of an extended team in an architecture studio with different profiles and different tasks assigned to each of the team. This diversity brought me a lot because I realized the panoply of choices offered by the profession of architect. 

The design production were only the visible aspect of a whole know-how which attaches to the project, to the client, to the site, to the figures and to the financing. I did not hesitate to explore these underlying forms, to ask for information, to move in order to better understand even at times when I was not asked. I was motivated by taking initiative in a structure where you just had to follow and apply. 

I think that's why I wasted no time in opening my own agency. But I always remained in a perspective of learning by working in a group. it was with architect friends or even persons with whom I saw that it was useful to work. Working freelance had come up against me very early on with management constraints and over the years I was able to build my own dashboard and my way of doing things in project management from the design phase to the construction site.

Did your first experiences in or around architecture influence your philosophy or your approach to practice, and if so, how?

My first projects as a liberal professional were with an organization and not a physical person. they were bank branches and my clients were the managers at various bank levels. This prompted me from the start of my career to prepare detailed and very well studied dossiers. 

It had an immediate impact on my work methodology. I had to create an organization to be able to facilitate my task. I think I kept certain reflexes in my way of doing things even for the less consistent projects of today. I am talking about the technical process of the work of an architect where my rational side was manifested in an obvious way. 

Regarding my architectural practice's vision, it has evolved well over the years and has been intimately influenced by my personal life and more particularly by my life as a mother. My periods of pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum were also periods of mature reflection of my professional practice. It's as if this birth situation sent me back to reflect on the foundation of my practice as an architect, on the philosophy of being an architect.

I saw myself gradually asking myself lots of questions to which I was looking for answers, my own answers. This allowed me to focus on the process of designing projects, on the real output  of the design, its social, psychological and sustainable purpose. My way of working has changed by refocusing the user at the very heart of the design in order to increase the efficiency of the finished product. 

My objective was no longer to deliver aesthetically interesting buildings more than to deliver places in a perfect harmony with their future occupants. My projects are thus designed in a support process where listening has opened a path from the project to its appropriation by the client.

Fatma Kobbi Boussetta
Architect founder of l'Atelier
tel/fax : +216 70 860 602
contact@latelierkf.com
www.latelierkf.com  

This origin story is based on the questions posed in this Sounds Like Design blog article. If you’d like to publish your origin story on our website, please email your text with accompanying portrait and project photos to Rachael via email.