« Le Merle Moqueur » Bookshop

104, Rue d'Aubervilliers, Paris, France

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« Le Merle Moqueur » Bookshop

104, Rue d'Aubervilliers, Paris, France

Firm

Tomorrow Architects

Type

Commercial › Retail

YEAR

2009

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET

$500K - 1M

This bookshop takes place in a new cultural center in Paris, called “Le Cent Quatre” situated at the border of the city in the north east part. The main idea of the clients was to introduce commercial activities within the building. The bookshop stands in a public gallery in front of a restaurant, beside different boutiques and a children facility. The bookshop was designed in close collaboration with the teams of Cent Quatre and Merle Moqueur both financiers each additional elements of the project (envelopes, technical and furniture).Within the existing building, the bookshop is a large open hall divided in two subspaces. All the peripheral walls are covered with book shelves. This linear furniture is divided by vertical elements like banners. The banners mark the different sections with all the themes and discipline like literature, sociology, comics... These banners are also used to present the new books. At the two corners of the bookshop, we built two reading rooms for children and adults. These non-commercial spaces are used to read books presented in the bookstore. Some of the furniture is on wheels, this frees up space for conferences, readings by authors.All the furniture (book shelves, banners and tables) is made of birch plywood. This allowed us not to varnish furniture. all fields of furniture are left rough and all joints are visible. The floor is covered by an epoxy reflective chocolate resin. The graphic ceiling is made of alternating acoustic panels and colored fluorescent suspended lights. All the technical equipments are visible above this fragmented ceiling. The existing ceiling, an industrial structure made of steel and bricks is also partially visible. With the warm color palette ranging from red to orange, everything has been conceived in this project to create a place of peace, reading, curiosity and breathing in the neighborhood.