Sid Lee Transforms Montreal’s Place Ville Marie – Azure Magazine
Planted in the heart of downtown Montreal, Location Ville Marie is a mid-century icon. Made by I.M. Pei and completed in 1962, the professional hub is an emblem of the International Style. Together with a 47-storey financial tower, an elevated general public plaza is created atop underground retail that types aspect of the metropolis’s expansive underground city. As portion of an ongoing re-invention of the elaborate, style and design company and imaginative company Sid Lee have transformed a previous bank corridor into their very own dynamic new workspace.
Positioned below Position Ville Marie’s pedestrian plaza, the 7,300-sq.-metre place of work is a semi-subterranean house that spans a adjust in elevation among two downtown streets. With an expansive skylight as the only supply of pure illumination, the architects took on the challenge of generating a light-crammed, modern business office when honouring the plaza’s modernist bones.
To make the most of an unconventional place, the designers opted for a simple yet dynamic structure that draws purely natural light-weight from previously mentioned deep into the multi-level workspace. Nicknamed the “Biosquare,” a white grid-like construction of staircases —and communal seating — is woven via the heart of the room. Accented by lush greenery, the light-weight finishes and open format make an ethereal, energetic ambiance in what could or else be an enclosed, underground space.
Sid Lee revitalized the interior though preserving significantly of the current infrastructure. For illustration, peeling back again the carpet revealed travertine flooring — which was restored to honour the primary inside. Meanwhile, the skylights have been equally stripped and enlarged in purchase to brighten the room with as significantly all-natural lights as doable.
Re-interpreted as social areas, the stairs that weave by the place blur the distinction from just one level to the upcoming, fostering a unified ambiance in. The unconventional layout also offers occupants overall flexibility to find new and ingenious strategies to make use of their environment. With no cubicles or assigned offices, Sid Lee staff can select their possess working atmosphere — whether or not which is a classic desk, a greater shared desk, a couch or a café table.
To distinction with the shiny white doing work stations, assembly rooms take on a stark stark black ambiance, generate a quiet and immersive atmosphere independent from the communal areas. In lieu of compensating for the absence of windows in conference rooms and non-public areas — including the bathrooms — the designers opted to emphasize the darkness with a luxe, moody ambiance.
As Sid Lee co-founder Philippe Meunier puts it, the job is an physical exercise in bringing the firm’s “entrepreneurial spirit to downtown Montreal and making an obtainable collaborative hub for the city’s resourceful and small business communities.”
The new workspace also forms section of a larger sized transformation of Location Ville Marie and its environment – all led by Sid Lee. Along with a thorough renovation of the neighbouring Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Resort, the designers have also sensitively re-shaped the plaza that surrounds the office, introducing new plant daily life and greenery even though transforming a parking garage entrance into a general public staircase and promenade. As a outcome of the drastic transformation, the community square has noticed a spike in pedestrian activity, introducing a friendly new vitality to what remains a handsome modernist showpiece.
