Situated at the top of 333 Chabanel in Montreal, the new SSENSE office takes an entire floor of a former textile factory and transforms the space into a modern office space, studio and warehouse. Both creative and avant-garde in their use of digital retail, Ssense was looking for something that could be edgy, contemporary, and luxurious.
We have designed a space that reflects their personality-logical, efficient, transparent and minimalist. The new refined materials act in contrast to the crude industrial shell. Inspired by the company’s graphic signature, we have created a minimalist black and white environment as the foreground to everyday business. The ceiling, walls, exposed column structure and even rusty pipes were kept intact like an artefact, as a background to the new architectural vision. The spirit of the project stands in the link between past and future. The concept is amplified in the connections and details linking the new architectural elements to the original structure of the building and the soul of the place. The space is made out of 2 distinct zones. East side: where the common spaces are to be found including a big laboratory kitchen, a play zone, a series of refectory tables and lounge spaces. West side; a wide open space, large enough for a hundred employees, contains a dozen 12 foot long work tables. The white environment of open desks is designed with a parallel movement of graphical, linear lighting.
