After graduating from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1970, he was, along with Jean Bossu and Georges-Henri Pingusson, a founder member of a study unit called Unité Pédagogique 5. In 1973, he was awarded a "Master of city planning in urban design" by the University of Harvard and, after returning to France, wrote a column on urban architecture for the Urbanisme journal. From 1975 to 1992, he collaborated on projects with Jean-François Jodry.