Rethink The Workspaces

PERNOD-RICARD, world leader in the manufacture and distribution of premium wines and spirits, has commissioned Studio Malka Architecture to design its new office.
B.I.G., literally Breakthrough Innovative Group, is a task force focused on researching innovative concepts, new products that change traditional codes, and the consumer’s perception of a product category, brand, or even of an industry.
Located in Paris’s center, these two connected buildings still bear traces of their industrial past; Studio Malka Architecture had to carry out a heavy rehabilitation and a total remodeling in order to adapt it to BIG Pernod Ricard’s needs, while imagining new uses for this workplace.
In order to investigate new ways of working, Studio Malka also has designed limited edition furniture.
The existing site has allowed clear and distinct assignments; a main building will embody the main working area, consists of three levels converging around a central patio. The second building, Big Hospitality* is entirely dedicated to reception meet ups, bars and informal meeting spaces.

The allocation of the levels was conceived according to three distinct and complementary universes:
– The Think Tank, nestled in the attic, is a place of creativity and exchanges where concepts are developed.
-The Do Tank, located in the street level, is a development platform focused on business, marketing and development of those concepts.
– The Make Tank, on the lower floor is composed by an amphitheater, a large open kitchen and a tasting area, as well as scientific laboratories for formulation, analysis and prototyping where new spirits are developed.

With BIG Pernod-Ricard, Studio Malka Architecture keeps on exploring MuFu – literally Mutant Furniture – stretching design’s scales and merging different uses into one piece of limited edition or unique furniture piece.

Inhabit the floors with the Mutant Grounds
In the Make Tank, the flooring is extruded from the ground into a geometrical landscape meeting place, an amphitheater under the central patio of the building. These mutant grounds allow polymorphous seating systems, a 3m long floating dining table for tastings, creating a federative agora at the nerve center of the main building.

Stealth furniture to stretch and dissolve space
A series of custom-made furniture have been elaborated with mirror structures. These camo systems allow to enlarge the perspectives while dematerializing them.
Thus the kitchen and all its storage wall disappears to reflect the amphitheater and the central patio, emphasizing the perception of the space. This three-dimensional mirror system, assembled on a hollow cube with a 23° rotation of the walls and ceilings towards the sky to gain natural light, allows a mise en abyme,  creating infinite fields of reflection.

Sound-proof Open Pods (SOP), a new typology of office development.
More than a fusion of open space and the cloistered office, SOP are a new type of office development. This contemporary alternative to usual workspaces solutions introduces a unique typology; These are soundproof long alcoves in three dimensions, allowing to work quietly around the patio. SOP is a real hybrid system combining flexibility and mobility, with a complex layering that incorporates a very high sound absorption system, allowing to isolate within the same shared platform. Equipped with integrated storage and combined in the total surface of the walls, SOP are also punctuated with separative furniture;
The latter are also mobile and can be juxtaposed to create closed or completely open spaces within the trays according to the wishes of each, thus opening up all possibilities to the development of the trays.

Scaffolder modular systems.
Tables, storage spaces, libraries are made with upcycled industrial scaffolding diverted from their primary uses. These modular systems are easily assembled and dismantled to adapt to the various number of users and different needs, creating a constantly renewed geometry. Industrial scaffolder systems invade the walls, creating micro-architectural units that are both mobile, stackable and flexible, and open or closed depending on the uses of the Office.