French designer Phillipe Starck has once again pushed the boundary with a new architecture project in Montpellier. “Le Nuage”, a fitness and wellness center with 5 floors, featuring a series of sport rooms, swimming area, sauna, café and children’s area. With this project, the French designer explores the concept of transparency when developing it’s unique façade, pushing the notion of the “inflatable building”.
“Le Nuage” a light and experimental design, with innovative architectural methods found throughout the building’s blueprints. It’s exterior air filled bubbles are formed using ETFE, giving off an impression of lightness and distortion.
“When you look at a cloud, you hardly look at anything and yet it is nothing. water, minerals, bacteria, pollen … all that is vital is there. Translucent, bright, seemingly lighter than air. The cloud, ours, that of Montpellier, is the same water. At a minimum, a nothing, a human bubble, a little material, that energy, just the will and common action to keep life.” – Philippe Starck