PUBLICIS | LE TRUC

Design & Renovation | New York, NY | 30,000 SF | A+I

Completed

Our concept was to conceive of and execute an entirely new creative workplace experience for the French advertising giant, Publicis Groupe, on a full floor at the heart of the company’s flagship building at 375 Hudson Street. Together, we set out to design a space to unlock and elevate creativity for the company’s new collective, Le Truc, - a ‘Clubhouse for Creativity’.

Through its development, the space became a new way to understand how creative work happens. It is a novel initiative that elevates the unique needs of the company’s creative professionals. In our strategy work, we interrogated how, where, and when ideas are formed, nurtured, protected, and made – what happens at each step of the journey, where magic happens, and where things fall apart. We designed the space as a thatch of wildly diverse environments to allow individuals or groups to move between environments that support the creative demands of any given moment. There are bullpens, auditoriums, libraries, nooks, niches, and flexible collaborative lounges near one another to enable an individual to collaboratively test an idea, or retreat to refine one.

The spaces, colors, light, and modes don’t immediately state their intention; they are designed to encourage everyone to discover where they can be creative. Publicis formed a new collective called “Le Truc” appointing a mischievous monster as its brand mascot to represent its own collective of ‘monsters’. Irreverent in character, hidden moments inspired by the spirit of the monster are layered into the design to spark a sense of discovery and surprise.

Designed with far fewer workstations than headcount, and instead more flexible, non-deterministic spaces, the resulting environment encourages choice and fosters spontaneity. The space is defiant of hierarchy and convention; instead, it’s a fluid playground of spaces responding to how people want to work today. It looks and operates, unlike any other Publicis office space.