Planted in the heart of downtown Montreal, Put Ville Marie is a mid-century icon. Built by I.M. Pei and finished in 1962, the industrial hub is an emblem of the Worldwide Style. Together with a 47-storey financial tower, an elevated community plaza is crafted atop underground retail that sorts component of the metropolis’s expansive underground city. As component of an ongoing re-creation of the elaborate, layout agency and resourceful agency Sid Lee have remodeled a former financial institution hall into their individual dynamic new workspace.
Located below Area Ville Marie’s pedestrian plaza, the 7,300-sq.-metre workplace is a semi-subterranean house that spans a change in elevation involving two downtown streets. With an expansive skylight as the only resource of organic illumination, the architects took on the problem of producing a mild-crammed, contemporary business while honouring the plaza’s modernist bones.
To make the most of an unconventional house, the designers opted for a easy still dynamic format that attracts purely natural gentle from previously mentioned deep into the multi-stage workspace. Nicknamed the “Biosquare,” a white grid-like construction of staircases —and communal seating — is woven through the heart of the area. Accented by lush greenery, the mild finishes and open up format build an ethereal, energetic ambiance in what may possibly normally be an enclosed, underground space.
Sid Lee revitalized the inside while preserving considerably of the present infrastructure. For illustration, peeling back again the carpet exposed travertine flooring — which was restored to honour the unique interior. In the meantime, the skylights ended up likewise stripped and enlarged in buy to brighten the house with as a great deal purely natural lights as probable.
Re-interpreted as social spaces, the stairs that weave by the place blur the distinction from 1 stage to the following, fostering a unified ambiance inside of. The unconventional format also gives occupants adaptability to obtain new and ingenious approaches to make use of their surroundings. With no cubicles or assigned places of work, Sid Lee staff members can choose their own doing the job ecosystem — no matter whether which is a standard desk, a bigger shared desk, a couch or a café desk.
To distinction with the vivid white operating stations, assembly rooms consider on a stark stark black ambiance, develop a calm and immersive atmosphere independent from the communal areas. In lieu of compensating for the lack of home windows in assembly rooms and personal areas — including the bogs — the designers opted to emphasize the darkness with a luxe, moody ambiance.
As Sid Lee co-founder Philippe Meunier puts it, the task is an training in bringing the firm’s “entrepreneurial spirit to downtown Montreal and producing an obtainable collaborative hub for the city’s creative and small business communities.”
The new workspace also types component of a larger sized transformation of Area Ville Marie and its surroundings – all led by Sid Lee. Together with a thorough renovation of the neighbouring Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, the designers have also sensitively re-shaped the plaza that surrounds the office environment, introducing new plant lifestyle and greenery whilst reworking a parking garage entrance into a community staircase and promenade. As a outcome of the drastic transformation, the public sq. has witnessed a spike in pedestrian activity, introducing a helpful new vitality to what remains a handsome modernist showpiece.
