jean nouvel project: office for living

jean nouvelportrait © designboom

jean nouvel on the pleasure of LIVING in a work environment

‘in 30 or 40 years time we will be stunned to see just how unlivable most of today’s offices really were. grotesque clones, standardization, totalitarianism, never the merest hint of being pleasurable to inhabit.‘ according to french architect jean nouvel, we need to adapt our offices the way we adapt our homes, in order to enjoy the time we spend at work.

during the upcoming milan design week, from 9 to 14 april 2013, nouvel will present a range of scenarios to replace the ‘grey world’ of purpose-built-and-furnished offices.the complementary relationship between the worlds of ‘home’ and ‘work’ will be conceptualized in an exhibition commissioned by COSMIT,with an installation of 1600 m2 inside the pavilion 24 of the ‘SaloneUfficio’.

to create an unusual vision of interaction between those two realms, the french architect will present a series of alternative working environmentsand standard workstations will be shown at the centre of the installation (this part of the show represent his rejection of corporate environments).

‘the office today is based on the idea of offering the same space for everyone,’ he says ‘and general solutions are usually bad solutions for everyone.’

jean nouvel on the ‘office for living’ projectimage courtesy of iSaloni

‘it is a quest for new materials and new technologies for creating comfortable, effective, user-friendly and ecologically-aware environments. ‘we need to inhabit our offices the way we inhabit our homes and our cities, because we spend just as much time in the workplace as we do in our own apartments, and everyone has a right to small pleasures – light regulation, emplacements, views, the right of expression through furniture and objects.’

in the very near future people will work increasingly in apartments, at home, or in existing spaces of various different types. project: office for living will showcase several different environments light years away from urban segregation and functional cloning. ‘the architect’s job is to interpret the technical, cultural and social changes of the age in which we live and to express them poetically in a quest for freedom‘.

exhibition lay-out

a monolith will rise up in the middle of the installation, showing four video-portraits: a film director, a philosopher, an artist and a writer raising concerns and giving their views on the concept of office space. this then paves the way for five completely original scenarios illustrating just how out-dated the traditional office already is.a classic apartment, completely transformed into a working environment and done up in ultramodern style is the first ‘mise en scene:’ the space is on a human scale, making for more user-friendly and enjoyable spaces than any repetitive, standardised offices. this is an instance of ‘cocooning’, the concept of recreating one’s own nest at work, fostering a sense of reassurance.

the second mise en scene will consist of a series of adjoining offices set out logically and in a structured fashion, but generously free-form in spirit. sliding walls, folding doors, careful lighting and diversity of ambient achieved by means of moveable blinds, accessories that can be hung onto or removed from the walls at will: the workspace can be closed off from or opened onto the neighboring offices as required and as desired.

exhibition lay-out

next off is a warehouse, converted into an office, optimizing its spatial potential, representative of the essential interactions between domestic and work spaces, and reflecting the increasingly common trend for working from home.

heterogeneity is the key to the final mise en scene: mobile, modular and stackable flat surfaces and shelving, that can be piled up and perched upon, making for an entirely different working environment and presenting like an outline cityscape. even the materials – aluminium, wood, leather and plexiglass – take on their own heterogeneity, enveloping other components to innovative effects.

spaces unfettered by traditional rules, therefore, driven by the concept of a pleasurable working environment, allowing people to compose their own spaces to suit their own particular needs, with plays of light and reflections. to this end, a laboratory, or theoretical demonstration space, is devoted to light, demonstrating how its capabilities can be harnessed and exploited, an antithesis to the standardised office lighting systems of today.

furniture by master designers nouvel admires including jean prouvé and charlotte perriand will be showcased alongside contemporary examples. upon invitation by nouvel, a VIP lounge will be created by ron arad, michele de luchi, marc newson and philippe starck.

exhibition lay-out