At first glance, the Orange Cube—yep, that's the actual project name—seems to have nothing in common with the warehouses dotting the Lyon, France, peninsula where the Saône and Rhône rivers meet. Yet according to Architizer, the team at the Paris-based firm Jakob+MacFarlane chose the retina-scorching color very carefully, effectively reinterpreting orange "safety" paint found on industrial sites into a vivid, modern complex that's come to mark the harbor's revitalization. The five-story structure, which now houses a law office, a digital media company, a real estate firm, among other businesses, was quite obviously designed as a cube, but the architects carved a hole in the middle to create light, views, and balconies. Cladding the exterior is an aluminum façade whose seemingly random perforation pattern is actually meant to mirror the ebb and flow of the River Saône. A closer look, below.
· Design Details: the Orange Cube in Lyon [Architizer]