While waiting for the completion of the building created by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the Fondation d’Entreprise des Galeries Lafayette has invited Razzle Dazzle to think about the design of a temporary working space, to be used by the management team, aimed at welcoming the artists but also intended for the organisation of exhibitions and conferences.
The goal is to turn a 80 sq. m apartment and an adjacent 50 sq. m studio into a changing and temporary working venue, that can house between 5 and 20 people.
The space is left untouched, the traces of the past are preserved and create a big contrast with our one-off interventions. Two openings, that used to be condemned, are arranged in order to connect the two apartments.
A disproportionate table-object (9.5mx2.5m) overlaps the main two spaces, as if it was crossing the structure of the building itself.
As a technical element, it allows a better distribution of the networks by reducing the interventions on the existing ones.
Off the scale, it is part of the internal desire to work in teams, to encourage communication, cohesion and creativity.
The Gallery, dictated by the economics of the project as well as the programmatic setting, is a bare and non-fixed space, continually defining itself in the use that will be made out of it.
The interior volume, after being stripped down of the excess, was divided into four distinctive zones, allowing gradual access from the public domain to the private one: Transition / Gallery / Staff / Technique.
At the end of the Gallery, a large pivoting door separates the public and the private spaces when it is closed. When open, the space is continuous and allows the exhibition space to spread out.
