Minimalist and Modern

Compiled by Team IAnD

Photography: HervéAbbadie; courtesy the architect

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Arte Charpentier Architectes designs and builds the new Thales head office in Paris in tandem with the company’s hi-profile products, brand image and ambitions… 

Carpe Diem tower at La Défense, Paris is an architecturally elegant building, innovative in its construction. It seemed the perfect address for the Thales Group – the French technology leader known for combining innovation, stability, durability and attention to detail in high-technology fields such as aerospace, transportation, defense and security.

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The challenge was to design and create, within an accelerated 5-month timeframe, an efficient, fully customized workspace for 450 workers, including a boardroom and a showroom for the company’s cutting-edge technology and expertise. The company wanted an open, collaborative space designed to foster focus, creativity and innovation.

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Inspired by the values of the Thales Group, the architects have conceptualized the interiors around the communication of expertise within teams. The overall alignment with the tower’s existing architecture is reflected in the interplay of interrupted sightlines and broken lines evoking rupture, precision, and the creation of new points of view and perspectives. It is a vector of internal and external communication, making it the master key to all of the Group’s activities.

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The design was conceived as a comprehensive project to serve different functions: shared and closed offices spread over seven floors, with specialized spaces punctuating each level -reception, showroom, cafeterias, boardroom, president’s offices, clubs, etc.. The broken line reappears on the floor and ceiling, as well as in the placement of lighting fixtures and the design of light grooves. The design is consistent from one floor to the next, one space to the next, contributing to the overall sense of the Group’s unity.

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The atmosphere is minimalist and modern, featuring light colours, materials and textures that lean toward fluidity.