Architecture & Interior Design
Architecture & Interior Design
An atelier devoted to residential architecture, sustainable design, and luxury interiors crafted from stone, wood, concrete, and earth across Mexico, France, and Costa Rica.
View Our Work →Atelier En Vie is an architecture studio created at the intersection of different cultures and worlds.
It takes its roots in France in poetry, in the poetry of details, in the way a project integrates into its territory, with a deep respect for nature and for resources.
Then it expanded in Mexico, where architecture reveals another dimension, deeply connected to cosmology. An ancestral architecture, but also something very technological, very empirical, very raw. Between the past and the future. An architecture that is in direct dialogue with the elements.
At the same time, the founder grew up with a strong connection to Japanese culture, as her father was deeply rooted in Japan. From a very early age, she learned the delicacy of Japanese life a delicate art of living, a sensitivity to lines, to gestures, to silence.
The practice of kata choreographed movements in karate became for her a form of architecture. A way to understand space through movement, through precision, through invisible lines.
Neo-BrutalismFrom this, a language emerges that she likes to call neo-brutalism taking raw forms and refining them, combining elements to create a new vocabulary. A vocabulary in deep coordination with nature and the elements: the sun, the wind, the earth, the cycles. An architecture that does not try to impose itself, but rather to align, to resonate, to belong.
Do we really need to deploy so much force to impose ourselves on nature? Or can we choose to integrate ourselves, subtly, and co-build with Mother Nature as all species on this planet do, except us?
We are living in a context of identity crisis, of humanitarian crisis, where we are losing the sense of what truly matters, beyond money, beyond beliefs.
Do we choose power, or do we choose consciousness? Do we elevate ourselves towards peace?
For her, as an architect and as a human being first architecture is a tool. A tool to design a world where we can live with awareness.
Founder · Architect
Vie Leclair is an architect and designer based between Mexico and France, working at the intersection of natural materials, biophilic principles, and deeply considered spatial experience. She founded Atelier En Vie as a vehicle for a slower, more intentional practice one rooted in place, craft, and ecological responsibility.
Her work integrates AI-assisted design workflows with hands-on material research, allowing the studio to move fluidly between conceptual exploration and precise, buildable proposals.
Based in
Mexico City &
South of France
Practice Areas
Residential · Interiors
Sustainable Design
Studio Founded
Atelier En Vie
Approach
Natural Materials &
AI-Integrated Workflow
Atelier En Vie was founded by Vie Leclair with a conviction: that architecture should breathe. Every project begins with place its light, its earth, its memory and builds outward from there.
We work with natural materials and slow processes to create homes and interiors that age with grace. Our practice spans residential architecture, interior design, and the careful restoration of existing structures.
Custom homes designed from the ground up from initial sketches to construction oversight.
Interiors conceived around light, tactility, and the life lived within. Stone, linen, timber, clay.
Biophilic principles and passive strategies woven into every project without compromise.
Old structures hold memory. We restore and adapt existing buildings with sensitivity.
Gardens, courtyards, and outdoor rooms that extend the interior outward into the land.
Thoughtful urban interventions grounded in community, ecology, and long-term livability.
Desert Pavilion Residence · Sonoran Desert, Mexico
Japanese-Inspired Residential Architecture · Yakushima, Japan
Temple Spa & Retreat Centre · Palenque, Mexico
Regenerative Landscape Design · Costa Rica
Canopy Treehouse Retreat · Palenque, Mexico
A Desert Temple · Baja California, Mexico
"We do not build for the eye.
We build for the life
that will unfold within."
Architecture is not the construction of objects it is the creation of experience. Every decision is made in service of the person who will inhabit the space.
Every project begins with a conversation. Whether you have a site, a brief, or simply a feeling about the space you want to inhabit we'd love to hear from you.
WIND WITHIN WALLS is a poetic exploration of boundaries and openness in the stark beauty of the Sonoran Desert. The residence challenges traditional notions of enclosure by using vertical corten steel blades that frame rather than contain, creating a dwelling where wind, light, and landscape flow freely through the architecture.
The design employs a deconstructed pavilion concept, where rusted steel walls stand as rhythmic sentinels against the horizontal expanse of the desert. These vertical elements some solid, some transparent create ever-changing patterns of shadow and light while allowing natural ventilation to cool the interior spaces. The architecture breathes with the desert, channeling prevailing winds while providing selective shelter from the harsh sun.
Floor-to-ceiling glass walls dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior, offering panoramic views of saguaro cacti, mountain ranges, and endless sky. Warm terracotta floors echo the desert earth, while rich wood-clad ceilings and walls create intimate human-scaled spaces within the vast landscape.
The vertical steel blades act as deliberate frames, directing attention to specific views while allowing the desert landscape to remain the primary focus. Architecture becomes a viewing device rather than an enclosed shelter.
Corten steel blades provide shading while their spacing allows prevailing winds to naturally ventilate the interior. The rusted patina reflects the desert's warm palette and requires no maintenance in the arid climate.
Multiple layers of solid and transparent planes create depth and visual complexity. As one moves through the space, the relationship between walls, glass, and landscape constantly shifts.
The elevated structure and minimal foundation footprint preserve native vegetation and natural drainage patterns. The design celebrates the desert's beauty while treading lightly on this fragile ecosystem.
AMO NO OTO is an extraordinary architectural retreat that redefines the relationship between built form and pristine natural landscape. The name, translating to "Sound of Rain" in Japanese, perfectly captures this sanctuary's essence a place where architecture becomes a vessel for experiencing nature's tranquility.
Nestled within a moss-covered ancient forest, this subterranean dwelling employs raw concrete, natural wood, and Japanese-inspired elements to create spaces that feel simultaneously cave-like and open. The design preserves existing trees, integrates natural water features, and uses minimal intervention to allow the forest to flow through and around the structure.
From meditation spaces overlooking forest streams to spa areas where pools embrace ancient tree trunks, every detail celebrates the dialogue between human habitation and wild nature.
The design seamlessly integrates with the natural environment, creating a dialogue between architecture and landscape.
Environmentally conscious material selection and energy-efficient systems minimize the ecological footprint.
Every design element serves both an aesthetic and functional purpose, creating spaces that are beautiful and livable.
The architecture prioritizes the well-being and comfort of its inhabitants through thoughtful spatial design.
Between Water & Earth is a landscape architecture and regenerative master plan for a coastal territory in Costa Rica. The project draws its design language from natural systems the branching logic of river deltas, the cellular geometry of wetland ecosystems, and the tidal rhythms that shape the land.
Rather than imposing infrastructure onto the landscape, the proposal works with existing water flows, creating a network of constructed wetlands, bioswales, and living edges that perform ecological functions while shaping inhabitable space.
AYA is a transcending architectural wellness retreat set amidst a jungle temple site, conceived for contemporary wellness and spiritual visitors. Drawing inspiration from Mayan and pre-Columbian architecture, this sanctuary seamlessly blends ancient, elemental forms with lush jungle environments, creating spaces of profound tranquility and timeless beauty.
The structure employs raw textured concrete and natural stone to create walls that reference the layered horizontality characteristic of ancient temple architecture. Each chamber orchestrates a journey of immersion and discovery from outer zones, while sheltering pools and focused stone channels enhance the meditative atmosphere. Each space is designed for contemplation, with carefully placed candles, incense, and natural stone creating an atmosphere of sacred ritual.
Conceived as a place simply labelled AYA, this sanctuary breathes, by employing living green materials for its spatial elements. The building interacts with its surroundings, using water centrally, dappled trees light, and the sounds of flowing water become integral to the spatial experience. This is architecture as spiritual journey, where every passage, transition, and vista guides visitors toward inner peace and connection with nature.
Employing timeless geometric principles from ancient temple architecture to create spaces that resonate with spiritual energy and cosmic order. Stepped pyramids and radiating fan patterns evoke solar worship and celestial connection.
Architecture has designed to embrace rather than dominate the landscape. Living trees grow through structures, water falls cascade around platforms, and jungle mist filters through chambers, blurring boundaries between built and natural.
Each space choreographs a journey of healing and renewal through thermal baths, meditation chambers, and contemplation gardens. Candlelight, incense, and water sounds create a multi-sensory experience that quiets the mind.
Raw concrete, natural stone, and aged wood create surfaces with tactile richness and visual depth. These elemental materials connect visitors to earth and stone while developing natural patinas that deepen with age.
The stepped pyramid is constructed through multiple raw concrete elements that cantilever dramatically over water features and natural terrain. Each radiating slab is designed to withstand substantial lateral forces to create roof overhangs over outer zones integrated from the design.
Thick concrete walls provide thermal mass moderating tropical temperatures for day and reducing warmth at night. Strategic openings ensure natural cross ventilation, while reflecting pools and water features provide evaporative cooling. The stepped configuration captures prevailing breezes and channels them through inhabited spaces.
The design integrates multiple natural water sources forest streams, rainfall collection, and underground springs interconnecting pools, meditation baths, and ceremonial water features. Gravity-fed systems minimise mechanical elements. Natural filtration through plant biomes ensures water purity without chemical additives.
During daylight, carefully positioned openings and skylights cast dramatic shafts of light that move throughout the day, marking time like ancient sundials. At night, hundreds of candles create flickering illumination that echoes pre-electric rituals and encourages contemplation. Minimal electric lighting is concealed within architectural details.
AYA represents a radical approach to sustainable architecture one that preserves and activates the existing jungle ecosystem rather than clearing it. Construction methods prioritised minimal site disturbance, with materials transported by hand through forest paths. The building footprint was carefully positioned to avoid existing trees, and native plants were woven into the structure throughout.
All materials were sourced within the region, with exterior aggregates from local quarries and timber from certified sustainable forests. The structure requires no mechanical heating, cooling, or artificial lighting during daylight hours. Grey water is processed through natural reed beds and returned to the forest, while organic waste supports composting gardens that supply the retreat's seasonal kitchens and market gardens.
Perhaps most significantly, AYA creates economic incentives for rainforest preservation. By demonstrating that forest jungle can generate sustainable income through wellness tourism, the project provides a conservation model that benefits both local communities and biodiversity.
“The canopy is not a setting. It is the architecture itself.”
Deep within the ancient jungle of Palenque, Mexico where Maya ruins dissolve into dense canopy and the air is thick with rain and growth Cuatro Rumbos was conceived as an act of radical belonging. Not a house placed in a forest, but a shelter grown from it.
The structure rises on a cluster of raw timber columns, lifting the inhabited volume above the forest floor and into the mid-canopy zone where light filters green through leaf, where the calls of birds replace the noise of the world below, and where rain on a thatch roof becomes the most intimate music of shelter.
A slender suspension bridge connects the dwelling to the bank of a forest stream the only threshold between the outside world and this private territory. At night, the bridge becomes a passage between two states of being: the lit familiar world, and the vast, breathing darkness of the jungle.
Inside, the rooms are designed not as insulated enclosures but as permeable membranes the glass, the slats, the gaps in the cladding all allow the forest to enter in light, sound, scent, and temperature. To inhabit this space is to be simultaneously sheltered and exposed: held by timber and thatch, and completely open to everything alive beyond the glass.
The Structure
The structural system borrows its logic from the forest itself: a cluster of raw timber columns irregular, upright, alive in material memory holds the volume aloft in the way that trees hold the canopy. No concrete, no steel. Only wood, rope, and the deep knowledge of how things can be bound together without force.
The Material
The thatch roof is both shelter and sound a living layer that hums with rain, breathes with humidity, and ages beautifully over years into deeper shades of amber and grey. Beneath it, raw timber boards and woven panels create walls that admit wind and filter light, making the boundary between inside and outside a question of degree rather than fact.
The plunge bath sunken into the timber floor, oriented toward the stream below is the heart of the bathing room. Its water is cold, clear, and drawn from the same source that has carved the valley floor for thousands of years. To step into it is to touch the jungle’s oldest infrastructure.
Spatial Programme
Design Philosophy
The structure rises into the canopy not to escape the forest floor but to enter a different layer of it where light, air, and sound are entirely transformed by height.
No wall is a barrier here. Glass, timber slats, and open thresholds allow the forest to enter the home continuously in sound, light, temperature, and scent.
Raw timber, woven thatch, and linen remember their origins the forest, the field, the hands that worked them. The materials age and deepen, becoming more themselves with time.
Every act of daily life bathing, cooking, sleeping, waking is given the weight of ceremony by the forest’s presence. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when set against the jungle.
Light here is not engineered but invited the slow morning rays through canopy, the candlelight reflected in still water, the firelight against dark timber. The dwelling is shaped as much by light as by structure.
The Bedroom Forest Light as Alarm Clock
A Desert Temple
Where earth meets sky and stone holds memory a house that grows from the desert like the cactus itself, rooted in the landscape of Baja California.
Elemental is a private desert villa conceived for Baja California a place where the land is already a temple. The building does not arrive in the landscape; it emerges from it. Its rammed earth walls carry the red-brown tones of the soil, and its repeated arched openings echo the rhythm of the cardón cacti that surround and infiltrate the site, growing right up to the walls as if the house and the desert agreed on their shared boundary.
The plan is organised around a central patio an open-sky room with a shallow water body and a custom stone fountain at its heart. This courtyard is the breath of the house: the source of light, air and orientation for every room. The 360-degree pool wraps the platform like a moat of liquid turquoise, reflecting sky and stone and dissolving the line between architecture and desert at every hour of the day.
“The cacti don’t frame the house they complete it. The building is simply one more thing that grew here.”
Two large bedroom suites anchor opposite ends of the house. The first is a warm sanctuary with a stone bathtub oriented toward the pool and the desert beyond, and an arched window that frames the dunes. The second opens to a walk-in Italian shower with floor-to-ceiling glazing overlooking the pool. A smaller third bedroom is roofed by a skylight shower a space where bathing under open sky is part of the daily ritual.
The kitchen centres on a monolithic island of stone, carved and smooth, where cooking is unhurried. The living room opens into a sunken seating pit a conversation hollow below floor level, flanked by a corner day-bed niche. Above the entire house, an accessible green roof planted with desert grasses and succulents makes the building nearly invisible from the dune ridgelines, returning the roofscape to the landscape.
The Structure
The structural language of Elemental is drawn from the most ancient desert building traditions: rammed earth walls that carry the red-brown memory of the soil, arched openings that distribute load while drawing the eye toward sky and horizon, and a platform that elevates the house just enough to command the cactus-filled plain below.
The Material
Rammed earth is not only a structural choice but a philosophical one. The walls remember every layer of their making compacted in lifts, each stratum a visible record of the desert floor. Stone appears as bathtubs, basins, fountain bowls, and kitchen islands: carved, smooth, heavy with presence.
Glass is used only where the desert must be seen without interruption floor-to-ceiling at the shower, arched openings at the bathtub, full-height at the living room. Everywhere else, the wall itself is the view.
A continuous band of water wrapping the entire platform, dissolving the boundary between house and desert horizon.
An open-sky courtyard with a shallow water body and custom stone fountain the lungs of the house, source of light and air.
A sunken seating pit below floor level for intimate gatherings, with a corner day-bed niche and arched openings to the desert.
A monolithic stone island anchors the kitchen cooking as ceremony, unhurried and connected to the patio and the light.
Stone bathtub facing the pool and desert. Large vanity. Arched window that frames the dunes at dusk and dawn.
Floor-to-ceiling glazed Italian shower overlooking the pool. Generous walk-in wardrobe and private garden access.
A compact guest room where the shower opens directly to the sky bathing under stars is not a luxury but the architecture itself.
Desert grasses and succulents crown the house, making it invisible from the dune ridgelines and returning the roofscape to landscape.
A refined powder room for guests and full service access, maintaining the domestic rhythm of daily life within the ceremonial form.
Every arch is both load-bearing logic and spiritual gesture the desert temple language made material in rammed earth and stone.
The cacti grow to the walls and between them. The house does not clear the land it negotiates with every plant, rock and gradient already there.
In a land of extreme dryness, water is not decoration it is presence, contrast, and the deepest comfort. Pool, fountain, and sky shower restate this daily.
To sit below floor level is to be held by the earth. The sunken living pit anchors conversation, rest, and belonging in the most primal architectural gesture.
From the central patio to the sky shower, the house refuses to fully separate inside from outside. The open roof is the most important room.
The green roof returns the roofscape to desert. From the dune ridgelines, the house nearly disappears a building that earns its place by yielding it.
Entrance Portal · Light Through Stone
Exterior · Through the CactiSide Pool · ArchesEntrance PortalStone BathtubRammed Earth Shower