In July 2026, La Table Ronde de l’Architecture inaugurated a school in Westhoffen, Alsace, dedicated to architecture and traditional building techniques. Founded in 2020 by Nadia Everard and Noé Morin, the association is taking a new step in a project it has been developing for several years: bringing architectural education closer to a practical understanding of the materials, techniques and crafts involved in the act of building.
The school’s ambition is not to train craftspeople as such, but in particular to give architecture students direct experience of craft disciplines. Stone cutting and masonry, brickwork, timber framing, lime plastering and hand drawing are among the skills that allow students to understand how a building is actually constructed and, in the future, to integrate this knowledge into contemporary architectural projects.
“We are trying to reconcile the architect and the craftsperson, professions that were once closely intertwined and were separated by modernity,” explains Noé Morin. For the founders, restoring this dialogue between design and construction is also a way of giving future architects the ability to guide their projects towards natural materials and building solutions rooted in local resources and know-how.
This transmission also responds to another urgent challenge: the increasing vulnerability of the crafts themselves. Among the main threats facing traditional architecture today, Noé Morin points to “the disappearance of the craftsperson”, confronted with a largely industrialised construction sector and an economic system that often makes skilled craftwork inaccessible. The challenge is therefore twofold: to transmit these skills, but also to explore the conditions that can make them economically viable and accessible in the contemporary world.
But the project reaches far beyond Alsace. La Table Ronde de l’Architecture is part of the international INTBAU network (International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism), which brings together professionals, researchers, educators, institutions and organisations in many countries committed to the transmission and renewal of architectural and building traditions. Being part of this international network enables the Westhoffen school to attract students and apprentices from different countries and to encourage the exchange of experiences, techniques and teaching approaches.
Westhoffen is thus becoming a meeting point between knowledge deeply rooted in a particular territory and a wider reflection that is developing internationally. The renewed interest in traditional architecture is not simply about preserving the past. In many countries, architects, craftspeople and researchers are revisiting local building cultures in response to very contemporary concerns: the use of natural and local materials, more resource-conscious forms of construction, the repairability and durability of buildings, the quality of living environments and the transmission of skills at risk of disappearing. The school is part of this shared vision: traditional building cultures can provide valuable resources for thinking about the architecture of tomorrow.
The choice of Westhoffen therefore takes on particular significance. Located at the foot of the Vosges, in an area still rich in built heritage, craftspeople and producers of natural materials, the village provides a particularly suitable environment for this experiment. The association has acquired a 17th-century farmhouse combining masonry, Alsatian timber framing and traditional roofing techniques. The building itself thus becomes a teaching tool, where students can observe, learn and practise.
Alsace, at the crossroads of several European building cultures, also provides a privileged setting in which traditions can enter into dialogue across borders. In Westhoffen, local know-how is therefore not considered a model to be reproduced identically elsewhere, but rather the starting point for a broader exchange between territories, craftspeople and building cultures.
Through this school, Nadia Everard and Noé Morin are advocating a vision of architecture that goes beyond the preservation of heritage alone. It is about rebuilding connections between those who design and those who build, between intellectual knowledge and the intelligence of the hand, but also between local traditions and an international movement seeking to restore a place for natural materials and building cultures within contemporary architecture.
Learning to draw, but also to understand materials, gestures and the people who build: in Westhoffen, heritage becomes less a model from the past than a resource for imagining how we might build tomorrow.
