You started your own studio after many years working with architects and artists in Paris and Los Angeles. What was the turning point that motivated you to begin your independent practice?

After several years working in large architecture offices, I felt the urge to create a practice where geometry, art, and architecture could merge without hierarchy. I wanted to explore forms not as functional constraints but as emotional landscapes. The turning point was a trip to Marfa in Texas to visit the Chinati foundation. I was realizing that digital tools allowed me to design and share large-scale installations directly, without the filters of big studios. Opening my own practice was a way to reconnect creation with immediacy and freedom.

As someone who operates mainly as a solo practitioner, what are the advantages and challenges of maintaining a small practice?

A small practice means I can stay very close to the design process. Each project reflects my personal vision. The challenge is the scale—producing works that are monumental while keeping a compact structure requires building strong partnerships with producers, engineers, and fabricators. But this constraint also pushes me to invent new methods of working and to remain agile.

You also mention collaborating with engineers and manufacturers. How do these collaborations influence your creative process? What kind of input do they give?

Engineers and manufacturers bring reality into dialogue with imagination. My sketches always begin as 3D models - they help transform them into physical experiences. Their input—structural, material, technical—is essential. It is a conversation: I propose forms, they suggest limits, and together we invent solutions that make the work both safe and spectacular. For example, I have collaborated with Google ATAP's engineers for my project "flap³" shown in Design Miami in Basel in 2023. It was an opportunity to learn about new technologies.

How much of your daily routine revolves around creating your pieces?

Creation is constant. Even when I am not drawing, I am observing, photographing, or experimenting with 3D simulations. I dedicate mornings to digital modeling, and afternoons often to production discussions or prototyping. But for me, the studio and life are intertwined—ideas arrive everywhere, from travels, cities, or gardens...

Silver Pyramid - Freeport Lisbon Fashion Outlet - Lisbon 2021 - photo (c) Artur Walczewski

Much of your work revolves around the repetition and generation of geometric forms. What draws you to these shapes as the foundation of your artistic style?

Geometry is universal. A sphere, a cube, a pyramid—they belong to all cultures and all times. By repeating them, I create rhythm and space, like a visual music. These simple modules allow infinite combinations, and through their repetition they become immersive worlds where visitors can lose scale and orientation. I use parametric tools to multiply those primitive shapes and test proportions.

You blur the boundaries between the physical and the digital in your immersive installations. How do you see technology shaping the future of art and architecture?

Technology accelerates the dialogue between the imaginary and the built. I can test a thousand iterations of a structure in virtual space before fabricating one. At the same time, audiences are increasingly living between screens and real life. Art must embrace this duality. I see future spaces as hybrids—where digital narratives and physical presence overlap seamlessly. I have designed two Immersive Spaces in the Metaverse: the Meeting Place and Pointless Space. Both are accessible via computers and can be already for meetings or an art exhibition.

The Knot at Fedsquare- Melbourne - 2021 - photo (c) Liam Neal

Many of your installations invite direct audience participation. Why is the relationship between the public and your work so important to you?

For me, the artwork only exists when someone enters it. The scale, the color, the texture—they are all designed to provoke movement, play, and curiosity. The public transforms the piece into an experience. Their photos, their interactions, their stories extend the life of the work far beyond the installation itself.

Pyramid Sunflower - NYBG - New York City - 2025 - photo (c) Cyril Lancelin

You mention a fascination with the intersection of the artificial and the natural. How do you express this tension in your work and breach these seemingly opposing forces?

I see geometry as artificial, but when repeated it creates patterns similar to growth in nature. A cluster of cubes can resemble a rock formation, a grid of spheres can suggest a forest of fruits. I like to place synthetic forms in natural landscapes or to bring organic references into inflatable architectures. This tension makes the work both strange and familiar.

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Pyramid Curbs - Grand Rapids - 2025 - photo (c) ATC-002

Your most recent exhibition, “Pyramid Curbs,” debuted at the Return to the River Festival in Grand Rapids. Can you walk us through the concept and experience you wanted to create with this colourful inflatable installation?

“Pyramid Curbs” is a landscape of inflated tube pyramids arranged in playful rhythms. The idea was to transform a public space into a colourful geometric playground. The pyramids act as both sculpture and maze, as landmarks and obstacles. I wanted people to move through them as if inside a drawing that suddenly became real.

How does “Pyramid Curbs” build upon your previous explorations of geometry and immersive environments?

It continues my research on repetition, but with a softer, more playful material. I have often worked with pyramids in rigid form, but here they become flexible, almost alive. This project extends my practice into a more urban and collective scale, transforming a simple sidewalk into a vivid immersive topography.

What challenges or surprises did you encounter in bringing “Pyramid Curbs” to life, especially given its large scale and interactive nature?

The challenge was exploration, finding as possible different ways to explore it and as many interesting views for photography. Another surprise was the way children immediately took over the space, inventing games I had not anticipated. The public’s imagination went beyond the initial concept, which is the best reward.

In what ways do you hope visitors will interact with and interpret the “Pyramid Curbs” installation?

I hope they feel both wonder and freedom. They can explore, walk around, bend, or simply observe the colorful landscape. It is not about prescribing an action but about offering possibilities. The installation becomes a canvas for collective improvisation.

Are there specific messages or questions you’d like audiences to consider when engaging with your latest work?

I would like them to reflect on how geometry can reshape public space, how something abstract can become functional, playful, and social. It is a way of asking: how can we reimagine our daily environment through art?

Ep4. Cyril Lancelin

Ep3. Hilarie Hon