Since it was founded in 2003, ciguë has focused on producing environments at the intersection of space, design and installation. The desire to reconnect architecture with making has constantly evolved over almost 20 years in contact with different people, projects and contexts. This culture of thoughtful creativity has struck a balance between diverse architectural production, deft handling of materials and research projects carried out in the studio, especially on the subject of virtuous materials and energy saving.
Based in Montreuil in a building that serves as both an office and a research studio, the team of twenty people develops a very wide range of projects, from public buildings to custom-made objects and from the renovation of historic buildings to the creation of interiors, production venues and retail outlets around the world. Current partners are Camille Bénard, Julien Franc Wahlgreen, Guillem Renard and Alphonse Sarthout.
The studio recently designed the three floors of Sanaa’s building for La Samaritaine on the Rue de Rivoli, a timber bioclimatic house in Haute Vienne and coffee shops for the Japanese brand %Arabica in New York and Marrakech. It has also carried out research on plaster concrete exhibited and published by the Pavillon de l’Arsenal.
Ciguë is currently working on some twenty projects including the Cergy Art School in collaboration with Raum in Nantes, a building in Jakarta that will be home to a %Arabica store, a renovation project for a 120-room hotel in Athens, a restaurant in a greenhouse on the shores of the Red Sea in Egypt, and its own future studio/living space in Montreuil.
