Photography by Adrien Williams
The renovation of Autodesk’s 60,360-sq.-ft. Montréal office called for retrofitting three storeys of an existing building to create a space that better reflected the brand of the maker of leading 3D design, engineering and construction software such as AutoCAD and Revit. Another goal was to convey playfully the joie de vivre that Montréaler’s apparently feel, thanks to their city’s rich cultural, gastronomic and architectural diversity. Mission accomplished, and to a manic degree. The open-office space is remarkable for its sprinkling of giant-scale, brightly coloured geometric objects resembling monstrously enlarged versions of a child’s building blocks. Their fractal or curving forms express the scaling, twisting and stretching operations of the California-based company’s software. These objects act as wayfinding devices and house themed phone booths and meeting rooms, a media library, exhibit spaces and multifunctional event spaces. They also attenuate the reverberant acoustics. Indeed, sound transmission influenced the planning, with loud functions positioned around the central core and quiet ones along the fenestrated perimeter.
