Positioning

Value

Innovation

Differentiation

Lab V is a strategic advisory practice working across real estate and the built environment.

We operate where positioning, research and innovation intersect with real-world use. By structuring identity, program, materiality and performance around meaningful user experience, we help projects and organisations move beyond compliance and create durable value.

From defining positioning to operational delivery and activation, we connect vision to tangible value.

Laélia Vaulot, founder of Lab V

About

Laélia Vaulot
Founder

With a multidisciplinary foundation spanning engineering, architecture, and applied research, Laélia Vaulot founded lab V to structure long-term value in the built environment through strategic positioning.

Before launching lab V, Laélia served as Environmental Strategy Lead at PCA-Stream, an architectural practice based in Paris, where she helped structure the Innovation & Applied Research team and led forward-looking research initiatives on the future of the office for clients including BNP Paribas Real Estate and IEIF. There, she developed comprehensive strategies for major renovations of patrimonial buildings such as BERGÈRE X PARIS and AXA HQ Matignon, as well as large-scale new constructions like the Bobigny Courthouse. She led urban-scale carbon reduction methodologies, for the transformation of the Champs-Élysées. Alongside her strategic work, she curated conferences exploring the intersection of art, science, and material culture, with topics ranging from AI and creativity to the evolving role of matter in design.

Her practice is rooted in research and experimentation. At Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in San Francisco, she contributed to the internal research group, developing low-tech seismic-resistant structural solutions. Earlier in her career at Atelier One in London, she worked on innovative bespoke structural systems for artworks and large-scale cultural events.

Laélia’s expertise is grounded in a strong technical background. She trained as an engineer at École des Ponts et Chaussées in France and earned a Master in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT. Her passion for design and building led her to pursue a Master of Architecture at Yale University.

Of French and Vietnamese heritage, Laélia grew up between Europe and Asia before beginning her career in the United States. Drawn by Paris’s pioneering momentum around sustainability and urban transformation, she returned to the city to deepen her expertise. Today, she brings this perspective to projects across geographies.

With Lab V, Laélia combines strategic vision with deep technical fluency guiding projects, portfolios, and companies from early-stage definition to implementation. Her multidisciplinary background allows her to connect positioning with real-world outcomes, engaging both high-level decision makers and technical teams.

Founded in Paris, Lab V operates across Europe and Asia, with an active presence in Tokyo.

Approach

Strategic Value Positioning

We intervene through three stages: defining positioning, operationalising strategy, and activating spaces and organisations, closing the loop between vision, delivery and experience.

Lab V bridges vision and execution. With a dual background in engineering and architecture, we combine strategic foresight with technical credibility working closely with a trusted network of environmental, economic, and design specialists to ensure coherent delivery at every stage. Whether defining a new destination, repositioning an asset or scaling an innovation in the built environment, Lab V helps align identity, performance and user value to create durable differentiation.

From Positioning to Impact, in three steps

Define Positioning

An exploratory and strategic phase.

Before major decisions are locked, we open the field : testing hypotheses, challenging assumptions and expanding the range of possible directions. This may involve curated expert inputs, focused research, regulatory or technical analysis, and structured workshops.

Through this process, we clarify:

  • Where value genuinely sits : for users, stakeholders and the market

  • The intended experience, beyond regulatory performance

  • Program logic and use scenarios

  • Material direction and structural ambition

  • Performance as a strategic lever rather than a compliance target

Operationalise

Embedding positioning into reality.

Once a direction is defined, the challenge is no longer conceptual, it becomes organisational and technical. Operationalising is where ambition meets constraints, strategy is no longer narrative. Positioning must translate into specifications, workflows, decision criteria and measurable targets.

This involves:

  • Translating strategic intent into briefs, frameworks and technical requirements

  • Aligning investors, designers, engineers, operators

  • Introducing or refining methodologies

  • Structuring data collection and interpretation to support arbitration

Activate

Ensuring that positioning is understood, experienced and adopted.

A strategy creates value only when it becomes perceptible to its users, stakeholders and market. Activation translates strategic intent into tangible signals and lived experience.

This involves:

  • Framing a clear and coherent narrative

  • Designing experiential or spatial programming that reinforces identity

  • Curating public-facing formats

  • Making material and performance choices legible

  • Creating moments of appropriation for future users

Who We Work With

Positioning Across the Built Environment

Lab V operates across the built environment ecosystem, engaging with investors, developers, designers, manufacturers and technology platforms shaping how space is conceived, delivered and experienced.

While contexts differ, the challenge remains the same: clarifying positioning, structuring performance and translating ambition into durable differentiation through research-driven and innovation-oriented approaches.

Our Ecosystem

Investors & Developers

We work with investors and developers seeking to clarify positioning, strengthen differentiation and structure long-term value across assets and portfolios.

  • Defining strategic direction before design phases

  • Repositioning underperforming assets

  • Structuring portfolio-wide performance logic

  • Integrating user value and comfort beyond compliance

  • Aligning material and performance ambition with financial strategy

We operate from early-stage definition through operational delivery and activation.

Manufacturers, Builders & Industrial Innovators

We collaborate with material producers, construction actors and industrial innovators developing new solutions for the built environment.

  • Clarifying market positioning and value proposition

  • Identifying relevant use cases and typologies

  • Connecting innovation with real project constraints

  • Structuring pilot references

  • Aligning technical performance with strategic differentiation

We bridge industrial innovation and market application.

Tech & Research Platforms

We engage with SaaS, proptech and applied research initiatives operating within real estate and construction ecosystems.

  • Strategic positioning of analytical tools

  • Clarifying integration pathways within project workflows

  • Aligning performance metrics with decision-making logic

  • Connecting technological innovation with user and asset value

Designers & Architects

We collaborate with architecture and design practices seeking to strengthen the strategic foundation of their projects.

  • Clarifying positioning before design is fixed

  • Structuring performance ambition beyond regulatory compliance

  • Integrating comfort, material direction and user value into concepts

  • Supporting complex arbitration between identity, feasibility and performance

  • Contributing research inputs that expand the design field

Performance & Environmental Intelligence

Beyond compliance

Environmental performance as a strategic lever for positioning, resilience, and long-term value.

Working alongside technical consultants, we structure ambition, frame the right questions, and ensure that environmental intelligence informs decision-making from early vision to delivery. Our role is to connect climate risk, comfort, material strategy, and regulatory evolution with financial logic and user experience.

What Environmental Intelligence Means

Environmental performance is not a sum of isolated metrics, it is a system of interdependent decisions.

Reaching an ambitious embodied carbon target requires more than material substitution. It implies circular economy strategies, reuse frameworks, and early engagement with bio-based or low-impact supply chains. Managing carbon trajectories toward 2030 or 2050 targets cannot be addressed asset by asset in isolation. It requires portfolio-level modelling, renovation roadmaps, phased investment strategies, and regulatory foresight.

At Lab V, we approach environmental performance as an integrated framework, where carbon, energy, comfort, materials, and resilience inform each other and shape coherent strategic decisions.

Network & Technical Depth

Lab V operates with a trusted network of specialised experts across:

• Carbon modelling and life cycle assessment
• Dynamic thermal simulation and comfort modelling
• Energy systems optimisation
• Water strategy and urban hydrology
• Biodiversity assessment and ecological integration
• Circular economy and material reuse platforms

Our role is to curate the right expertise at the right moment, translating technical outputs into strategic implications for investors, developers, architects, and innovators.

From Data to Strategic Implications

Technical modelling is only useful if it informs positioning.

We help clients:

• Interpret environmental data beyond compliance metrics
• Stress-test climate assumptions and regulatory trajectories
• Align environmental ambition with financial viability
• Transform performance constraints into differentiation drivers
• Connect comfort and material choices with brand identity and user value

Environmental performance becomes part of the value narrative not an isolated technical layer.

Research & Culture

Where Research Shapes Positioning

Research and cultural programming are integral to Lab V’s strategic practice.

Through curated formats, cross-disciplinary collaborations and experimental initiatives, we explore materiality, performance and user experience beyond immediate project constraints.

These investigations inform our advisory work.

Research Dimensions

Research Formats

Curated talks, workshops, exhibitions and learning programs that explore emerging questions in materiality, performance and spatial experience.These formats create space for dialogue between practitioners, researchers and decision-makers informing positioning through expanded perspective.

Art & Science Collaborations

Collaborations with artists and researchers whose practices engage with environment, technology and perception. From research-driven installations to conceptual commissions, these projects test new narratives around comfort, material innovation and spatial meaning.

Cultural Activation & Integration

Strategic integration of artistic and cultural interventions within projects and organisations.Whether through temporary installations, curated programming or permanent works, these initiatives reinforce identity and make positioning perceptible.

Let’s connect

Lab V works across real estate and the built environment, engaging with organisations and individuals shaping how space is conceived, delivered and experienced.

Whether you are defining a new positioning, restructuring a portfolio strategy, developing a material innovation, or seeking to strengthen user value and differentiation, we welcome thoughtful conversations.

We also collaborate on research and cultural initiatives that inform long-term strategic direction.

If you would like to explore a potential project, partnership or exploratory idea, feel free to get in touch.

Get in Touch

contact[@]thelabfive.com