The Workshop
Programme: architectural offices
Clients: FdMP architectes
Dates: 2014
Status: built
In the centre next to the train station, FdMP offices participate in Geneva’s bustling city life. Within the Mont-Blanc Centre, designed by architect Marc-Joseph Saugey in the 1950s, our office is a place to engage and exchange ideas.
The workspace is organised around an open plan, where the modular furniture can be moved around swiftly for meetings, photoshoots, research, testing, model making, and after-work drinks. The pillars highlight the notion of space and reveal the substance of the architectural framework. They tell of our practice’s love for unitary and straightforward materials, such as wood, concrete and metal.
Four enclosed spaces, covered with metal sheets and a calamine coating, withhold a conference room, the model workshop, the amenities and articulate the plan. These walls act as large blackboards to display the work in progress - something telling of our architectural practice’s methodology. Everything pinned up is commented, annotated, and challenged. As such, the office becomes a workshop. A place to drive creativity and innovation for high-quality designs.
The workspace appears as transparent as it is participatory, as organic as it is functional.
- The office acts as a workshop, a creative and sharing space.
Photographer: © Federal Studio
Press: O. Zbinden 1-2017
