French architectural practice established in 1977 in Paris by Marina Devillers (b Bucharest, 15 Sept 1947) and her sister Lena Perot (b Bucharest, 3 Aug 1945). Devillers received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1972. Perot received a graduate diploma in urban studies at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris in 1976. They began working together in Paris in 1972 and during the 1970s and 1980s entered several architectural competitions, winning numerous awards. Their principal client was the State, and they specialized in social housing (e.g. in Reims, Cergy-Pontoise and Chambéry) and public buildings. Their renovation and extension (1988) of the town hall at Aubervillers employed a stark, geometrically orientated modernism. A four-storey building, it has an overall surface that is flat and planar, relieved on the first floor by the punctuating element of vertical rectangular windows. Some relief is given, however, by the upper and lower storeys, the windows being deeply recessed within the planar wall. The exterior design of their housing complex (1987) at Pierrefitte, with 143 flats, is more relaxed and inventive. Expanses of wall are not flat but concave, with cylindrical, skylit stairwells placed within this curved space. Their training as urban planners was also brought to bear on their designs for housing complexes; at Pierrefitte, for example, they were concerned to create systems of streets, courts, alleys and buildings that could make a transition between surrounding high-rise buildings of the 1960s and the old town. Devillers and Perot found their relationship as sisters advantageous in many ways, their innate closeness allowing agreement on many design issues. It also helped them solve a problem faced by many women in such a demanding profession as architecture: integrating work with the logistical and emotional demands of child-rearing.