Place des Victoires Office

The redesign of a 700 square meter office in the 2nd arrondissement was an opportunity to test architecture operating at the scale of furniture. Given the condition of the existing space, a Haussmann era building with a tight, highly compartmentalized floor plan, use of the office was highly constrained. In order to combat the rigidity of the existing architecture, a more flexible system to structure the space was necessary. By removing two walls, a large open showroom is created within which modular cabinets are inserted. Theu are meant to function as storage, displays, seating, workspace, or partitions, infinitely reconfigurable and interchangeable; by containing all necessary functions within the cabinets, surrounding space is freed. The desire was to create a system to counter the prescriptive, implicitly coded architecture typical of workspaces, instead giving employees the agency to structure the space for the ever-changing needs of unitary or collective activities.