Patrick Bouchain is an architect and scenographer. He has worked as an advisor to the former Minister of Culture Jack Lang, as well as to the president of the Etablissement public du Grand Louvre. Convinced that architecture must be intrinsically "tied to the community and its interests", he focuses on public constructions and collective needs, and has pioneered the field of redeveloping industrial spaces into cultural ones, with projects like Le Magasin (The Store, in Grenoble) or La Condition publique (The Public Condition, in Roubaix).

Bouchain curated the 2006 French pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale; rather than following the standard exhibition format of words and images, the social nature of architecture was emphasised. The group Exyzt were invited to inhabit the pavilion, constructing a scaffold-like structure inside and living in it for the duration of the biennale. The space included DJ and design studio, kitchen and sauna, underlining the fact of architecture as occupation rather than built object. This alternative approach foregrounds the role of informal networks, social space, and processes in architecture and has much in common with other European practices such as Atelier d'Architecture Autogeree, City Mine(d), Raumlabor and of course the group that Bouchain brought to international attention, Exyzt.

Bouchain has been developing and teaching for years a H.Q.H. (High human quality) which aims to restore humility and intelligence to contemporary architecture.