Architecture Studio is an international architecture, urban planning and interior design agency founded in 1973. It has offices in Paris, Shanghai, Geneva, and Abidjan. The agency is run by 10 partners and features a cosmopolitan team of 150 employees.
The firm relies on knowledge-sharing and interaction to unleash the creative potential of its collective approach. This allows the world to be understood in new and different ways and facilitates responses to the key challenges of the 21st century.
Committed to passing on its knowhow and skills, Architecture Studio is actively involved in promoting culture and education. Its initiatives include monthly public lectures, entitled “AS Wednesdays” that welcome outside speakers to share their practices. In 2020, the studio extended this dynamic with AS Matinées, a format dedicated to workshops for exchanging ideas and reflecting on various topics.
This embrace of openness is mirrored in the project carried out at its offices. Architecture Studio is reinventing the use of the basement at its headquarters, which was previously occupied by nearly 500 linear metres of archives which have now been outsourced. The studio has decided to enhance the site's unique history by transforming this now vacant location into a new living and meeting space.
Under its vaults and exposed foundations, a library area has been created along with three video conference rooms, and three areas specifically designed to foster inspiration, sharing and socializing.
The lighting system, designed in collaboration with iGuzzini, enhances the original materials of stone, brick, concrete and steel, matching both these and the design’s other contemporary materials perfectly. In the conversation area, Robin projectors mounted on a Superrail track are aimed in a way that creates luminous hearts on the walls. In other environments, like the small meeting rooms, the same luminaires help create zenithal lighting on the worktops and a spot effect on the walls. Using the Superrail has also allowed Laser Blade XS modules to be installed, for example, in the bar area. Both recessed and pendant Easy luminaires have been used in the transit zones. The areas that are still used as archives or are fitted with bookshelves are lit by IN30 luminaires fitted with Wall Washer optics and, in some contexts, Laser Blade recessed luminaires have been installed in special grooves created in the original material. For the meeting room on the ground floor, a combination of three Drop by Drop pendant luminaires has been chosen to help create a soft mood in this ambience that is characterised by the colour green.
Overall, this project is a concrete realization of the studio's vision of constantly investing to offer its team environments that are conducive to collective and creative work.
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