Canadian interiors studio Ste Marie has designed the Vancouver headquarters of luggage brand Monos to emphasise simplicity and shift mood throughout the day.
Located in the city's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, the Monos office was created to reflect the brand's development to date and provide space for continued growth.
Ste Marie was presented with an open-ended brief, allowing the studio to develop a "flexible framework" for a company that is "still exploring what it could become" and would allow its team to collaborate, experiment and host.
Photography
Photography
"Monos is a brand grounded in design, mindfulness, human connection, and we understood this as an opportunity to create a place where those values could be put into practice," said Ste Marie.
"A place where their people could come together to work, create, exchange ideas, test new things, host events and gather as an extended community."
The studio, which previously designed the interiors for a Monos store in Toronto, approached the workplace like a residential project and organised the spaces into three overlapping areas.
"Like an apartment, it accommodates everyday activity as naturally as moments of hosting," said the studio. "The residential quality also supports Monos' culture of openness."
The first area features low, soft modular sofas for lounging and conversation, and enclosed banquettes below conical pendant lights that facilitate personal exchanges, small meetings or shared meals.
An elongated communal table at the centre of the open plan provides a flexible surface for meetings, product development, testing, dining and gathering.
Here, the custom millwork is arranged in perpendicular planes that form vertical supports and horizontal overhead light boxes.
At the back is a kitchen and tea room with solid-surface counters and handleless cabinets, continuing the minimalist schema that runs throughout.
"These areas can expand and contract as needed: a meeting can become a meal, a work surface can become a display, and a lounge can transform into an event space," Ste Marie said.
The hardness of the polished concrete flooring and rift-cut timber millwork is offset by soft furnishings, natural-fibre rugs and sheer curtains.
Dimmable lighting enables the mood to shift from early morning focused work to more casual afternoon meetings and then evening events.
"The result is a workplace that feels considered but not overly designed, with the warmth and informality of a personal space and the flexibility of a creative studio," said Ste Marie.
Ste Marie was founded by Craig Stanghetta and has developed a reputation for its cinematic hospitality spaces across North America.
Other recent projects by the studio include a trio of venues in Edmonton, a series of amenity spaces within a renovated 1960s tower in Chicago and a Vancouver restaurant influenced by Hong Kong's "love motels".
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