Christophe Hutin Featured Speaker at Atlanta Design Festival

WHEN: September 26, 3:00 p.m.– 4:00 p.m.

After several collaborations with Villa Albertine, architect Christophe Hutin returns to continue exploring new perspectives on architecture, territories, and ways of inhabiting space.

As part of the Atlanta Design Festival’s Creative Futures Conference, the Creative Futures Conference takes place on September 26, bringing together designers, architects, artists, and creative thinkers to explore how design can shape the future.

As the theme of this festival is “Make It Last,” we are especially excited to welcome Christophe Hutin as one of this year’s featured speaker and as a leader of the “Never Demolish” movement. The French architect is known for his human-centered approach to architecture, which embrace what already exists to shape inclusive spaces and foster communities, placing people and everyday life at the heart of his designs.

Christophe Hutin will share his perspective and experience, offering insight into how architecture can become a tool for social and cultural transformation. His work challenges conventional approaches to the built environment and opens up new ways of thinking about how we create spaces together.

All info about Atlanta Design Festival

This event is part of the programming of the season France-Atlanta 2026.

The story began in May 2023, when French saxophonist and composer Raphaël Imbert embarked on a Villa Albertine residency in the United States. His project, Music is My Field, set out to explore the rich musical traditions of the Southeast and Appalachia. It was in Atlanta that Imbert first connected with saxophonist Kebbi Williams and his collective, Reverence, during the city’s Music in the Park festival.That encounter sparked a transatlantic artistic exchange. Imbert invited Williams to perform at the J.E.S.T. Festival in Marseille in November 2023, and later at the Marseille Jazz des Cinq Continents festival in July 2024. The collaboration deepened in November 2024, when Imbert came back to Atlanta. Alongside Marseille-based musicians T.I.E. (electronics) and Blanche Lafuente (drums), he traveled to Atlanta to co-create a new piece with Williams, Zacchaeus Paul, and Daniel Wytanis. The result was a powerful performance at Music in the Park on November 17, 2024.Nydia Blas and Joshua Dudley Greer’s residencies aim to narrate the city of Marseille and its complexities, offering, in resonance with French photographers Geoffroy Mathieu and Yohanne Lamoulère’s explorations of Atlanta, a perspective on two cities through the lens of communities and urban landscapes.