Thanks to Ate­lier blam, Joe Krey­mati con­tributed to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with the cre­ation of an elec­tric flame for the impres­sive Olympic caul­dron admired the world over. An inno­va­tion sup­port­ed by EDF with design­er Matthieu Lehan­neur. Inter­ac­tions zooms in on this incred­i­ble adventure!

The adven­ture began in 2022, when Joe Krey­mati arrived at l’Ate­lier blam as part of his end-of-stud­ies intern­ship with the UTC’s IDI (indus­tri­al design) pro­gramme. He met its founder and direc­tor, Aurélien Mey­er, via a col­lab­o­ra­tive project with the school, which pro­posed a pub­lic space design top­ic that enabled him to take his first step into the dual posi­tion of designer/engineer and, for the first time, to express him­self artis­ti­cal­ly through an object. The idea of cross-fer­til­is­ing art with engi­neer­ing, aes­thet­ics with tech­nique and form with func­tion res­onat­ed strong­ly with him. “This priv­i­leged oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with Ate­lier blam paved the way for me to dis­cov­er the real busi­ness of cre­at­ing unique objects as an intern in 2023. Dur­ing this intern­ship, I took part in the devel­op­ment of a pro­to­type test for the Olympic flame. The elec­tric flame is an inno­va­tion devel­oped by EDF and its Pulse Design team over the last 10 years. It con­sists of two key ele­ments: water and light. The first is a mist gen­er­at­ing sys­tem that ejects fine water droplets from a series of pres­sur­ized noz­zles, cre­at­ing a Ven­turi effect via a ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem. All this inter­acts with a cus­tomized, con­trol­lable light­ing sys­tem designed and devel­oped by Ate­lier blam to cre­ate a real­is­tic, dynam­ic Olympic flame,” explains Joe Kreymati.

Combining technology and poetry

Once the pro­to­types had been val­i­dat­ed and the design of the caul­dron begun, Joe Krey­mati’s role focused on the devel­op­ment of the design, the tech­ni­cal design and the pro­duc­tion of the light­ing fix­tures for the caul­dron as part of a “caul­dron” team led by Axel Per­raud, the project man­ag­er at Ate­lier blam, which also cre­at­ed the mechan­i­cal sil­ver-clad horse that skimmed along the riv­er Seine [dur­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny]. The real chal­lenge was to design pow­er­ful light­ing fix­tures so that the flame could be seen dur­ing the day, while at the same time keep­ing to the low mass of a bowl that had to fly. Exten­sive research was car­ried out to opti­mize weight and heat dis­si­pa­tion on cus­tom-machined alu­mini­um fins. “I’ll always nour­ish this crazy mem­o­ry when, one evening in July 2024, the caul­dron was lit and rose 60 meters under a rainy sky for the first time at our site in Couëron, Loire-Atlan­tique. I admired it from afar. In my head, I was lis­ten­ing to music like a scene from a Christo­pher Nolan sci-fi movie. A real moment of poet­ry and a mon­u­men­tal image,” sums up the 24-year-old engi­neer, whose project is to trans­form ideas into real­i­ty, to tell a sto­ry and par­tic­i­pate in writ­ing that sto­ry, to link art, engi­neer­ing and sci­ence in new approaches.

Colin Gallois bears the flame …

UTC grad­u­ate Col­in Gal­lois, co-founder of the start­up Eppur, was cho­sen by the CPSF (French Par­a­lympic and Sports Com­mit­tee) to be one of the 1 200 torch­bear­ers for the Par­a­lympic relays. He was there­fore able to car­ry the flame on August 26, in Vichy, dur­ing a col­lec­tive relay aimed at high­light­ing inno­va­tion play­ers in the field of dis­abil­i­ty and han­d­is­ports. A few days lat­er, he attend­ed the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Par­a­lympic Games and saw some fif­teen ath­letes parad­ing around on Dreeft wheels equipped with the world’s very first brak­ing sys­tem. “My most vivid mem­o­ry is the vic­to­ry of table ten­nis ath­lete Yunier Fer­nan­dez, who won the gold medal with our wheels! What remains is the pride that Eppur, through this nom­i­na­tion, sym­bol­i­cal­ly fig­ures among the links in this chain of ini­tia­tives and projects that car­ry the val­ues of inclu­sion and acces­si­bil­i­ty of the Par­a­lympic Games”, assures Col­in Gal­lois who, dur­ing his appear­ance on the M6 pro­gram Qui veut être mon asso­cié [who wants to be my asso­ciate] a few months ago, was able to recall that Eppur, of course, con­tin­ues to devel­op on the French mar­ket, but is also aim­ing to do busi­ness abroad. “Dreeft is now avail­able in over twelve coun­tries, includ­ing Aus­tralia, New Zealand and Japan.

KD