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Sunday, May 26, 2013

manuelle gautrand: origami office building, paris..sited in a luxurious parisian neighborhood within the vicinity of the arc de triomphe and within the sightlines of ideal city views,manuelle gautrand's 'origami office building' strove to create a distinct, elegant mark on the urban fabric that was clearly in dialogue with the warm,weathered stones of the surrounding architecture. the high-level office program was accommodated into an orthogonal volume clad in a doublelayered curtain wall of glazing and faceted, screen-printed marble skin. while the architect had original envisioned a sectioned marble envelope,the 'marble origami' pattern print allowed optimal control of the rich hues and design as well as a more purposeful application of the system asa shading device. the precise position of the marble veins was achieved through careful layouts in order to create an open-book composition thathearkened to historical stone work of the surrounding structures. a gradient of the tectonic was established to choreograph light and movementacross the space-- the heaviest sports two veins dominated by a pattern of beiges, while two iterations of lighter and less veined prints are relegatedto the extremities of the building. the effect is a light-filled marker on the streetscape that chromatically harmonizes with the next-doorhausmann buildings.