Orange Cube in Lyon, France, designed by firm Jakob MacFarlane (Photo: Nicolas Borel) Tomorrow marks the start of IIDEX/NeoCon, one of the biggest office and contract furniture this side of the Atlantic. The show always comes through with an impressive roster of international keynote speakers, and this year is no exception: among the lot, France’s Jakob + MacFarlane, the architectural firm behind such out-there projects as the Orange Cube, a commercial and cultural complex in Lyon, France that is covered with a Swiss cheese perforated metal faade in neon orange. Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane will be speaking at IIDEX/NeoCon on some of their most noteworthy projects, but the Toronto Standard caught them mid-packing to discuss colour, their design projects and working abroad. Several of your shoreline projects, like the Orange Cube and the bright green Docks en Seine, look incredible from across the water. Is this point of view something that plays a major role in you design process? Yes, the context is very important; it is often how we first perceive a project. We are very concerned in how a project dialogues with its site. Both these projects also called for a certain presence in the city. They needed to be seen as opposed to being part of a background. The Docks en Seine, for instance, could really only have worked at its particular place along the Seine: the colour of the river at this point, the way the buildings around it. We created a facade that is at once is about the movement and presence of the river and also the old docks building from which it emerges. How do you start developing ideas? The process tends to start with a massive collection of information that we start to purge through, at the same time as completely unrelated stuff like instinctive sketches. It’s about data collection and personal sense gradually coming together through a process of modelling, drawing, designing, talking, and at the end it’s somehow the most vital issues that remain and take form. Docks en Seine, Jakob MacFarlane (Photo: Nicolas Borel) Colour also seems to play a really important role. Colour is important. Sometimes colour gives us a way into a design because it’s a way of focusing, even if it’s not the final colour that is built. But for us it does give the project a volumetric sense part of the way through the process. It also gives an emotional aspect to the project that also helps create a way through the process. A kind of emotional guide of sorts. You’ve done a number of public space projects–pavilions, installations, etc. What is it about this type of project that appeals to you? It is amazing what you can build in this world in a condensed time frame. La Ville Intelligente, our project for this year’s Hellodemain Exposition was inside Le Parc de La Villette in Paris for just four days. We had a huge number of meetings within a very short period and then when we did get the green light to build, it was the case of making extremely fast decisions that led to all sorts of creative responses. We really enjoyed this as a lot of architecture takes so much more time–and doesn’t test you as much. Float Light by Jakon MacFarlane You also do conceptual industrial design work. Your Float Light, your Breathing Wall…these pieces seem to walk the line between art and design. The works bridge the space between art design and, I would say, architecture. Each of these projects is like a mini architecture of sorts…. encapsulating its own language and rules. These pieces were conceived as such that if they sold, all the better. But they were not conceived to be produced in any big numbers. We are not designers as such and don’t claim to be in that these pieces are made in very small numbers and are informed by as much art and architectural interests. Right now we’re working on a huge interactive project called Sphere for French carpet manufacturer Chevalier. You’re also currently working on a housing project called Maison S? Yes–a private housing project for a client at the edge of Paris… it’s in a neighbourhood of houses designed by the likes of Mallet Stevens, Corbusier and others in the 1930s. Building on this history, we’re creating a house that belongs to this tradition of experimentation. For us it is rare to do a house commission in France these days so we are very motivated. You’ve done a lot of work in France, but also abroad. How does working in other countries differ? It always differs because of different ways of communicating. Language is not really the problem; it’s the methods and cultural differences that one has to adjust to. But then this is really what makes working in other cultures so rewarding. Have you been to Toronto before? No, we haven’t been to Toronto before so we really look forward to this as we have heard many really good things over the years about the city. IIDEX/NeoCon runs from September 22 to 23 at the Direct Energy Centre __ Paige Magarrey is a regular contributor on design to Toronto Standard.
