5 years after its creation, Alaena Cosmétique opens a new chapter with the opening of a new headquarters, a living and working space designed by the Pastre Gardera architectural studio.
Can you introduce your agency and your team?
We are a multidisciplinary architecture firm located between Paris and Biarritz.
With around ten employees, the agency explores a wide field of investigation and responds to a varied demand for projects, ranging from architecture (individual and collective housing, workplaces, public facilities, etc.), to interior design and space design (hotels, restaurants, etc.).
The "workshop" spirit drives the agency's production, anchored in a constant search for accuracy of writing and sobriety.
Tell us about your meeting.
We met in 2013 on the AZALA office building project (the “skin” in Basque) delivered in 2015.
Having mutual knowledge of our client, they asked us to work together, which we liked and it worked very well! We then renewed occasional collaborations on other types of projects until the merger of our two agencies to create the Atelier d'Architecture Gardera-Pastre in 2020.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Very sincerely, almost everywhere and in all types of media... But the contextual approach is fundamental as a basic postulate for any project start-up, which feeds on what is "already there" and seeks to "reveal" the spirit of a place by developing a symbiotic and specific architecture, whether for a new establishment or a renovation project like here.
The development of any project also begins by listening to the client and understanding their expectations. Each project is then approached and studied specifically, using an approach that focuses in particular on the usability of buildings and the search for an optimum relationship between architecture and site.
Tell us about the Villa Sion project. How did you manage to adapt Alaena's spirit to this new location?
The ALAENA brand was, in a way, built on the world of the SPA that we had already designed within the AZALA building. To create the world of this new headquarters, we were therefore in turn inspired by the image consolidated over the years and conveyed by the brand ... and the circle is complete!
The places (SPA, headquarters) like the ALAENA brand appeal to notions of softness and timelessness, and the use of natural and refined materials.
Have you encountered any difficulties?
Like any construction site, it's not a long, quiet river! But it all ends well in the end.
More seriously, if difficulties are encountered, it is rather as often by the companies which must implement our ideas and we are thinking for example of the demolition of a reinforced concrete staircase on 3 levels which required almost a month of jackhammer work!
We were lucky enough on this project to work with the full confidence of our client and with "our" usual companies, so everything went very well.
What did you like most about this project?
Exactly that… And the satisfaction of our customers!
Photo credit: Sandrine Iratçabal