Workshops
villa Noailles offers free workshops throughout the year, aligned with its programming, for both young audiences and adults.
Workshops for young audiences are held outside school hours, while those for adults take place during the festivals.
Winner of the Grand Prix Design Parade Toulon Van Cleef & Arpels and the Visual Merchandising Prize awarded by CHANEL – 2025
Thursday 16th and Friday 17th July,
9.30am to 12pm for 8–12 year olds;
2.30pm to 5pm for 13–16 year olds.
Booking required for both half-day sessions.
Free workshop, booking essential.
This workshop invites participants to build architectural models or pieces of furniture using materials gathered from around Villa Noailles. The first phase involves searching for materials that could serve as structure and/or surface. The second involves assembling these elements while considering questions of scale, structure, and how one might inhabit a landscape.
Thomas Takada is a French artist born in Japan, whose practice sits at the crossroads of architecture, design and art. Against a backdrop of climate crisis, he seeks to inspire a fresh, curious and naïve outlook on our physical environment. Mindful of the dynamics of globalisation and the growing complexity of materials and modes of production, he favours a local, hands-on approach. His work aims to be at once didactic, poetic and pared back to the essential.
Simon Dupety is the winner of the Grand Prix Design Parade Hyères – 2025
Thursday 16th and Friday 17th July,
9.30am to 12pm for 8–12 year olds;
2.30pm to 5pm for 13–16 year olds.
Booking required for both half-day sessions.
Free workshop, booking essential.
MAË PAPER LAMP: —> making a bedside lamp. The Maë lamp is an object designed to be reinvented. Starting from a simple pattern, a shape folds in on itself to form this bedside lamp. Originally made in leather, then in aluminium, the Maë lamp collection has evolved through numerous collaborations with designers and craftspeople from all backgrounds: Maëva Dauriac, Atelier Zerma, Wendy Andreu, Tom Ducarouge, and Edith Théret, among others. Many iterations have since appeared in wood, leather, stained glass, denim and other materials. For this summer workshop, designer Simon Dupety proposes extending this collective work within Villa Noailles, creating new editions of this small lamp using paper and other materials. On the programme: designing and making the lamp’s outer shell, basic electrical assembly, and crafting the object’s packaging!
Simon Dupety founded the design studio simon+ in 2021, exploring craftsmanship and its traditional and future fields of application. Through it, he develops a laboratory of imagination in opposition to the standardisation of our everyday lives. Informed by his reflections on manufacturing systems encountered through hands-on experience, he creates hybrid objects blending know-how, industrial materials and natural resources.
Children’s Creative Workshop (Ages 6–10): “Fan of Colors” Inspired by Joachim Jirou-Najou at the villa Noailles, led by a cultural mediator.
Wednesdays: 08/07, 15/07, 22/07, 29/07, 05/08, 12/08, 19/08, and 26/08
Time: 2:15 p.m.
Age group: 6–10 years
Registration required.
Free workshop.
Children’s Creative Workshop: “Fan of Colors” Inspired by Joachim Jirou-Najou
at Chalucet Media Library, Toulon, led by a cultural mediator.
Saturdays: 25/07, 01/08, 08/08, and 22/08
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. for ages 4–6
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. for ages 6–8
Registration required.
Free workshop.
Workshop Description
In this workshop, you’ll create your own colour chart on a wooden fan. A colour chart is a collection of colours that you can look at to choose your favourites. Artists use them to come up with ideas and create their works. Now it’s your turn to create your own and have fun with colours!
About Joachim Jirou-Najou
Joachim Jirou-Najou is a French designer who graduated from the ESAD in Reims and the École nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs in Paris. After collaborating with Pierre Charpin, he founded his own studio in 2013, where he develops furniture, object and exhibition design projects for publishers and institutions such as Habitat, the Galerie Kreo, EO, the Villa Noailles, the Centre Pompidou and the Cité du Design in Saint-Étienne. The recipient of several awards, his work has been included in the collections of the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) and the Centre Pompidou.
Instagram: @joachimjirounajou
Website: www.joachimjirounajou.fr
