From Stream magazine to Stream Building

Launched in 2008 by Philippe Chiambaretta, founder of PCA-STREAM, the Stream research program was conceived as a tool for reflexivity and foresight in relation to the agency’s architectural practice. Over time, it gave rise to the publication of a multidisciplinary biennial journal, then a web distribution platform and a digital publication, Stream Voices, all supported by the Stream Lab team, before culminating in 2024 in the creation of a research chair on the City-Metabolism with PSL University.

When the Réinventer Paris call for innovative urban projects was launched in 2014, teams were encouraged to form original groupings, classically mixing architects and investors, but also thinkers, artists, researchers or start-ups, with the aim of responding to new ways of living, working, consuming or getting around. PCA-STREAM turned to the multi-disciplinary network of Stream contributors to initiate a co-design process and propose a new, innovative building concept on the Clichy Batignolles site, symbolically named the Stream Building.

A building for applied research, it embodies more than ten years of forward-looking thinking, notably on the occasion of issues 02 and 03 of Stream magazine, around new work practices and the challenges of the Anthropocene, culminating in the concept of a building-metabolism, capable of mutating over time and developing circular logics between its different programs.

A hybrid living space for the Stream Building

Beyond the building’s name, the team wanted to spatially embody this approach with the Stream Café, which takes on both a symbolic and practical dimension, as a welcome to the office program, occupied by OVH, a French leader in cloud computing. In the center of the building, at the foot of the vegetation gap, the main entrance leads directly to a third place, the Stream Café, in place of the reception desk of a traditional office program. Designed by the agency’s interior architecture department, its layout is based on a choice of comfortable furnishings in warm tones and textures, in wood, leather or felt, giving it a pleasant, domestic feel far removed from the formal codes of the office.

The Stream Café was conceived by the Pôle as a place to meet and relax, but also to work informally or reflect. External partners can wait for their appointments, while employees can meet for a coffee, a chat or an informal work session. In the evening, it lends itself ideally to an after-work or festive event. A functional, symbolic and decorative element, bookcases cover several wall sections, filled with design objects and a wide range of books curated by the Stream Lab, which focuses on research themes linked to urban innovation and includes a number of contributors to the Stream network. The colors of the bookshelves are inspired by those of the magazine, from which certain pages have been extracted and graphically reworked to transform them into a wallpaper that covers the free wall sections, giving the space a unique atmosphere. At the far end of Stream Café, the Cinaspic coworking space, managed in collaboration with the city’s Department of Attractiveness and Employment, can also accommodate local associations.