Vincent Delfaud
Project Manager in Toronto
"In the long term, rather than a traditional architectural firm, I would like to set up a building workshop where all building contractors can do preparation work together ahead of projects."
Vincent Delfaud, who holds a Master's degree in Architecture, is a project manager for the architectural firm Adamson Associates where he is coordinating the construction of London Bridge Place in London. An 80 meter office building with 50,000 square meters in floor space located in a busy business district right above a tube station through which two tube lines run, a bus station through which some twenty or so business lines run and about thirty cabbies. To complicate matters, the construction site is a mere two meters from where work is being carried out to expand and upgrade the Thameslink station. "I will certainly have to display the legendary British stiff upper lip in carrying out this project," says Vincent somewhat humorously and he knows what he is talking about since he filed two out of three building permits for the building a couple of years ago when he was working for the architects who designed London Bridge Place, Renzo Piano Building Workshop. First of all, Vincent served as assistant to the project manager and then was put in charge of the building envelope utilizing an innovative process to make the envelope in a factory that made it quicker to install but, however, required substantial advance precision design work. "One small error and all the physical components would be affected," explains Vincent. It just seemed natural for Vincent to go to work for the big Canadian firm Adamson Associates Architects that has developed world-renowned expertise in putting up high-rise buildings. But Vincent's background, although promising, is more complex that it appears at first glance. What is the key to it?
The answer to this question could be the Saharan mealworm beetle, a species of darkling beetle with a great capacity to withstand and survive the most extreme conditions, which is an interesting analogy to the young architect's background. Vincent describes, when talking about his childhood and teen years in the Paris metropolitan area, many travels in Africa. "It was amazing for me to discover that just a four hour flight away there was such a different way of living ". Having had a number of summer jobs in construction, after he graduated from high school, Vincent considered civil engineering. However, in 2000 he visited the Paris Val-de-Marne School of Architecture and that changed his mind. "Since the program was fairly long, I didn't want to waste any time," he explains. For seven years, he worked a full-time job and studied nights. "There is no ideal system; people just do the best they can," he said adding: "There are lots of things that I did not do, and that I miss, like having time to waste, to visit art exhibitions, read a lot but the benefit is that very quickly people considered me as a architect." In 2000, he worked for a year designing a housing development for the BLM architectural firm. A year later, he set up his own small firm and subcontracted the design work for competitive bids for corporate construction projects. In his third year in architecture school, he got a teaching position at a government sponsored training center in Soicy-sur-Seine. The center provides technical drawing training to industrially disabled persons. "That experience taught me a great deal about teaching and communication and about exerting authority. It's not always easy to exert authority with students who are twice your age," he explains. In 2004, he began his one and only internship at AJN (Jean Nouvel Workshop) working on the second phase of the construction of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. "The workload was heavy and there was great intellectual emulation among the people on the team. It was fantastic," he says enthusiastically. With this first experience at a major Paris firm under his belt, he was then able to apply for a job at Renzo Piano Building Workshop in 2005. At the time, Vincent was twenty-three. He worked on international competitions, building permits in London such as the one for the prominent London Bridge Quarter. He thereby seemed to have come full circle. However, there was still one more hurdle for Vincent to get over it was a big one: graduate from architecture school.
Vincent Delfaud took inspiration from the mealworm beetle and proposed a totally unexpected graduation project: designing a mobile and multipurpose tool to help combat the Tuareg people's water shortages. During periods when the Tuaregs are one the move, his sand sled facilitates the transporting of heavy loads. During the day, its shell provides people and animals protection from the sun. "And at night, the shell, just like the mealworm beetle, the difference in temperature between the ambient air and the tool's outer envelope condenses and stores water in tanks so that it can be used during the day," adds Vincent enthusiastically. In July 2007, the panel of professors at his architecture school, although they highlighted the interest of his proposed graduation project, wholly rejected it on the grounds that it contained no building structure. Vincent did not back down and went back to the drawing board and built a traditional African village with a model oasis and included his multipurpose tool as part of it. The new project earned him his degree in architecture. The very next day, in response to a request from Paul Vincent, a partner at Renzo Piano, the fresh graduate gave him a copy of his graduation project. With this unexpected support, Vincent was able to contact several NGOs in an effort to try to make his dream a reality. Early in 2009, the project was about to become reality. As luck would have it, Tidene, an NGO that works to improve the living conditions of the Tuareg people living in the Niger River Valley, offered Vincent an opportunity to teach drawing to children in the region and, at the same time, to make a prototype of his tool using recycled materials.
In Spring 2009, Vincent quit his job at Renzo Piano Building Workshop, turned in the keys to his apartment and started planning for his trip to African where he would stay for two years. Unfortunately, a bad motorcycle accident in June 2009 put a wrench in his plans. But as Vincent says, "It's not cancelled, just delayed ". There was a quick turn events in the young architect's life. When Adamson Associates offered him a job, Vincent could not refuse the offer. "The offer was such a good match to my background that I had to take it." Not at all concerned, Vincent, just like the mealworm beetle will always fall on his feet.
What inspires him? "Glenn Murcutt is my biggest source of inspiration today and, of course, Renzo Piano and Jean Nouvel."