A TOWER: INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE
Ysé Sorel & Nicolas Sisto
éd. POLYGONE
[2026]
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Graphic design: Ayessi Hessel
Editorial concept: Quentin Dejonghe
Interior illustrations: Marion Picq
Pages: 152
Format: 13 × 21 cm
Price: 22 euros
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“And what if a tower revealed better than any political discourse our mistakes, our impulses, or our blind spots?

For half a century, the Traversière Tower has stood there, shaped first by the dreams that carried it and then by the doubts that followed. In A Tower: Instructions for Use, Ysé Sorel and Nicolas Sisto unfold nine stories across three centuries, turning this building into far more than a backdrop: a presence, almost a consciousness, where the shifting forms of how we inhabit space are inscribed.

From modernist euphoria to ecological anxieties, the book traces the movements of a world that is both unraveling and searching for a way out. Traversière becomes the place where the intimate meets history, where the city reveals what it promises, what it destroys, and what it still hopes to save.

To read the city is perhaps to learn to see our time more clearly — and to reopen, within its very walls, the possibility of another reality.”
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2025
Proposal for the renovation and lighting of the façades of the Pullman Montparnasse Hotel.
Thermal renovation, replacement of exterior cladding and window frames. Designed in keeping with the original intentions of Pierre Dufau while integrating contemporary developments in manufacturing, expression, and use.
Façade made of anodized aluminum cladding and dark glazing with a bright coating.
Façade Engineering Office: EOC
Client (MOA): Columbia Threadneedle / Bain Capital
Project Management Assistant (AMO): Etyo Specialist advisor on the works of Pierre Dufau: Hugo Massire

2018-2022
La Défense, France.
Multi program tower: shops, sport, restaurants, offices and cultural spaces.
Surface: 6000m2.
Services: architecture, interior architecture, space planning, furniture design.
Sisto Studios: creation of the new building; architecture, interior architecture, space planning, furniture design.
Viguier Architecture: commissioned architect, conception of the Tour Aurore’s restructuration and extension.
Client: AER 2 /AERMONT.
AMO: Orfeo Developpement.
Structural engineer: Setec Tpi.
Façade engineering: Bollinger-Grohmann.
Fluid engineer: ATYS Engineering.
Construction Economists: AE75.
Building company: Petit, subsidiary of Vinci Construction Group.
Renderings: L’autre image.

2024
La Défense, France.
Multi program: penthouse, café, fitness center, reception hall.
Services: architecture, interior design, space planning, furniture design.
Client: AER 2 /AERMONT.
Project management: Orfeo Developpement.
Construction company: Stylique.
Artworks: Julia Trofimova.
Luca table designer: Ubr studio.

2020-2023
Renovation and extension of a building designed by Gregotti Associati in 2000.
Multi program tower: office and public spaces.
Montreuil, France.
Surface: 21000m2.
Services: architecture, interior architecture, space planning, furniture design.
Client: AG2R
AMO: Orfeo Developpement.
Structural engineer: Somete.
Fluid engineer: ATYS Engineering.
Construction Economists: AE75.
Landscape designer: atelier Florent Clier.
Building company: Cesam construction.
Renderings: Spectrum Vis.

Seine river tower facade, public spaces and interior renovation. Competition.
Multi program tower: shops, sport, offices and cultural spaces.
Paris 12e.
Surface: 25000m2.
Services: planning, architecture, interior architecture, furniture design.
Sisto Studios: renovation of the facade and interior.
Base land: landscape design of the square and rooftops.
Elioth: environmental strategy.
Client: SFL.
Renderings: alma studio.

2021-2022
Creation of an event and musical club.
Paris 10e.
Surface: 600m2.
Services: planning, architecture, interior architecture, furniture design.
Client: Haiku, la caserne, entourage.
Photos: haïku
Video: Thomas Kelly

2019
Renovation of a ruin into a hotel / restaurant, with development of a spa in the former hamlet.
France.
Surface: 2500m2.
Services: architecture, interior architecture, design of industrial equipment.

2019
Creation of a winery. Wine production spaces, offices, public reception and restoration.
France.
Surface: 3000 m2.
Services: architecture, interior architecture, industrial equipment design.

2019
Apartment renovation.
Paris 20e.
with Jade Marçais and Camille Gibert
photo © Cécile Bortoletti
Surface: 160m2.
Services: interior architecture, furniture design.

2018
Creation of a chapel.
France.
Services: architecture, furniture design.

2013
Creation of an elementary school.
Switzerland.
Surface: 5500m2.
Services: architecture, interior architecture.

2012
Store creation for the clothing and accessories brand Adidas Style.
Rue de Sévigné, Paris 3e.
Services: interior architecture, furniture design.

2019
Creation of an agricultural building.
France.
Surface: 800m2.
Services: architecture, interior architecture.