Christian Hauvette, the winner of the Grand Prix d’Architecture in 1991, likes to define himself as an architect-mechanic. He has formulated the idea that an architecture project is a mechanism that produces a machine.

Of all the buildings he has designed, it is the Martinique Education Authority offices in Fort de France that best embodies this conception. Two hundred people work in this office building designed to operate entirely without electrical air conditioning. The whole architectural concept is tailored to promote natural ventilation. The Wind Box is a machine for domesticating the trade winds that blow across the island – a complex aerodynamic machine, a totally porous building through which the wind passes.