BNP Paribas
A trading floor that reads as a banking hall.
A trading floor that reads as a banking hall.
- Client
- BNP Paribas
- Location
- London
- Sector
- Workplace
- Year
- 2023
- Status
- Completed
A trading floor for BNP Paribas in Dubai, designed as a banking hall rather than an open-plan office. The design holds Dubai and Paris in close dialogue: local material warmth and contemporary Middle Eastern character, inflected by the restrained elegance of French institutional banking. Refined material choices, considered lighting and a measured approach to privacy and openness reflect a client for whom both performance and representation are operational requirements.
An early project for the practice, at a moment when Midjourney was new and the creative application of generative AI was genuinely unknown. The studio ran a weekly internal exercise: a brief set for the whole team, each designer generates, the best image is voted on by the group, the winning designer sets the following brief. A small prize recognised the winner. On the surface it was a game; in practice it was structured R&D. The studio was developing visual literacy and a critical language for understanding what these tools could do, building instinct as a collective rather than as individuals. The foundational thinking behind i/o spark was formed in sessions like this one.
British Airways Miami→
A long-haul welcome, rendered as interior.