Today we offer you a meeting with Christopher Diot, founder of Once Upon a Space. An innovative company specializing in office layout and creating services for employees. Offering a refreshing vision for each project. The team stands out for its spirit of innovation and creativity. Rather than simply imitating existing market solutions, they enjoy designing new and original ideas that meet the specific needs of each client. They firmly believe that creativity is the key to creating unique workspaces that reflect their clients’ identity.
Through this interview, Aire invites you to discover the Once Upon a Space adventure, this new inspiring and promising concept. Christopher Diot answers Aire’s questions about the genesis of his concept. Discover his vision of the future world of work!
Discovering Once Upon a Space
Once Upon a Space offers companies to design their workspaces. But also to imagine the services associated with the employees of an organization. Beyond the layout, our goal is to offer companies a deep reflection on the employee experience. Thus, we approach projects holistically, taking into account all aspects surrounding an employee’s life within the company. For us, services are as important to an employee’s daily life as the space itself.
Our approach is to design, find the right providers, and launch the new service. We monitor to ensure everything runs perfectly.
Definition of a workspace
It is true that we are addressing the concept of workspace here and focusing mainly on offices. But it is important to note that the workspace encompasses much more than that nowadays. The evolution due to Covid is significant. And I believe it will continue to evolve further.
In my opinion, the workspace specifically refers, in our field, to places where company employees can settle to work. For our part, we mainly focus on physical workspaces, such as offices, of course. Or coworking spaces made available to them. We are not yet exploring other areas, but I think ultimately, the workspace can be anywhere. It is omnipresent.
A workspace is much broader than we think. It can be any place where you can settle down. I even want to say, at the train station or airport, that can be a workspace. A café, a library, even the train is a workspace in a way.
Can you share your ideal setup with us?
Ideally, I like flexible workspaces. I discovered a very interesting concept at Vitra. It involves dividing workspaces into three distinct parts. First, there is a section dedicated to a public sharing space, accessible even to people outside the company. Then, there is a semi-public zone including collaboration spaces. And finally, there is a third zone reserved for individual offices. This is where you find phone booths and other more private exchange areas. This zone is less accessible to visitors and outsiders.
A concept inspired by urban planning: the village square
A few years ago, I discovered the concept of the fifteen-minute city. From that came a personal interpretation, the village square, which really aligns with the original concept. But I found the analogy more human, and I tried to design a layout around this principle. The village square is a central exchange space, open to all employees of a company. It houses the main services, sharing zones, conference spaces, and even open coworking areas. There is always something to do and people to meet there.
Then, based on the available space, access is distributed to districts. These are areas dedicated to teams. They adapt in size, just like city districts can evolve. Each district has its own identity depending on the teams working there. These districts are then surrounded by smaller, less important services than the central district, which encourages interaction between neighboring districts.
Today, the workspace is more than ever a place where people can exchange, share, and feel the company’s DNA, but also a place where you should be able to meet with your team without being lost in a huge open space.
What do companies need to provide a pleasant working environment for their employees?
If we try to link this to the previous question, it will depend on the availability of space within the company. This represents an opportunity for companies to offer and create services that are not accessible in their employees’ daily lives. Whether due to limited personal space or the lack of access to facilities such as a conference room, music room, or large library.
It is important to also offer elements that fit the professional context. The office is not Disneyland; I also go there to access essential work needs (equipment, technologies, etc.). This is also an aspect that helps generate interest in coming to the office.
It is also necessary to design comfortable spaces, using quality furniture that not everyone has at home. I have worked in several tech companies and, for example, I know it is difficult to replicate at home the full comfort of an audio mixing room.
How to reconcile pleasure spaces in a workplace
I think at every scale, with every budget, it’s possible to offer nice spaces. For example, it’s possible to create a meeting room with a console; you work there, but at lunch or in the evening you play, and the decor can be centered around that. Higher-quality dining spaces without needing much room thanks to a connected fridge stocked daily, etc. Not all companies have the space and budget to immediately move to an immersive space with virtual headsets, audio, atmospherics, etc. I also think people don’t come to the office to lock themselves individually into a virtual world.
On the other hand, it is possible to create a space where content, books, and art can be shared. You can display paintings and invite artists occasionally. These are things that can be done within a company but are not accessible when you’re alone at home. I’ve seen many companies invite inspiring people for talks in front of teams; it’s a way to create events and bring rhythm to coming to the office.
How can modularity be a solution for companies?
Our goal is to offer teams a pleasant working environment; modularity thus provides employees the opportunity to make the space their own and create their own playgrounds. They can customize and adapt them to their needs. Modularity is most often applied to collaboration spaces, but it can also be used to modulate individual spaces by integrating elements that block noise, for example. Meta recently deployed acoustic partitions allowing everyone to create their own work bubble. This is, of course, an architectural choice motivated by the need to protect from noise, but it also allows blocking the view for those who need total concentration.
The workspace at the GAFAM companies
We had talked about a layout project at Google. In that, you described movable walls to me. I’d like us to discuss this again because it’s a concept that resonates a lot with us at Aire.
Indeed, Google has developed a mobile office project where all the furniture, including walls, vases, and flower pots, can be moved. This approach allows modulating the workspace according to needs, project phases, by opening or closing spaces. You can mount a large screen on a wall to isolate a team, but it can be removed when no longer needed thus offering greater flexibility. Of course, this can cause acoustic issues, but specific solutions can be implemented (fabric coverings, upholstered furniture, acoustic panels…). The concept of mobile offices allows creating a modular and open work environment, avoiding locking people into rigid spaces.
A meticulous work
There are also solutions to make spaces hybrid, and this type of furniture can incorporate them. Imagine a workspace with one team in Milan and another in Paris. It is essential to have a smooth connection between the two teams. We can use a large screen that can be mounted on a wall to isolate the team without confining them to a closed space. If this screen is equipped with the technology developed by the company “la vitre,” then I could have a direct visual bridge between my space in Milan and Paris. When collaboration ends, we can reopen the space and why not make this “spatial addon” available to a neighboring team. This helps avoid locking people into rigid spaces and promotes flexibility. These mobile blocks can also offer acoustic qualities if we work on the coverings and shapes.
I like to compare workspaces to the world of video games, perhaps because of my past at Ubisoft. When a publisher releases a game, they implement what are called DLCs (a kind of update with content) to bring new experiences to players and keep the game alive as long as possible. Let’s do the same for workspaces: create agile spaces where the life of the teams and their ways of approaching the places will allow us to add new features to the initial layout.
Spotlight on Christopher Diot
What’s your favorite workspace at home?
The dining room table. I have a big table (but a small apartment)!
How do you maintain your concentration during a long workday?
I try to pace my work. As long as I can stay focused, I keep going. Then as soon as I lose focus, I take a break.
Do you have a decorating tip to make your desk more pleasant?
The idea is to start with something simple, have light colors. Organize your space and keep the place clean. It’s very important to have good seating. I’m going to Slean to find a good chair; I was lucky to meet and test this company’s products at Ubisoft.
How do you organize your workspace to stimulate your creativity?
I’m constantly moving between different places, so I can’t put into practice everything I bring to my clients. However, I have the advantage of changing my environment and workspace. So I see a lot of things, and it stimulates and contributes to my creativity.
What’s the craziest gadget you have in your workspace?
I have a productive weeks notebook, it’s a bullet journal. It’s not a gadget and it’s not crazy, but it’s still quite unique. In this notebook, I can write down my weekly goals, weekend plans, and a tracker to try to establish certain habits (hello sports!). I regularly go back to previous pages to review the progress of a project in detail.
Do you have a song that gives you the motivation you need to work?
Yes, it’s the playlist from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Hook on the feeling: Björn Skifs There’s a version of this song by David Hasselhoff, the video is priceless—I recommend it if you want to have a good time.
If you had an office, what would you add to your workspace?
A huge board for visual project management
Is there a particular color you like to use in your interior decoration or workspace?
I went through a very green phase; I have a green at home created by Farrow and Ball in connection with National Geographic. Right now, it’s more of a Californian vibe with pastel tones.
Collection of https://www.farrow-ball.com/fr/california-collection
Which piece of furniture do you prefer in a workspace?
I like large shared tables in a team space, more like high tables. Metal legs with punchy colors. For me, Lab and Moore develop beautiful products in this direction, especially some linked with companies like Pavé.
If you could work from anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Without hesitation: Montreal, the culture, the hospitality, and for the Poutine. Otherwise, Bali for the culture and hospitality but not for the Poutine. I liked the mindset in these two very different countries.
In conclusion
The evolution of workspaces offers new possibilities to create more pleasant environments, flexible and adapted to the needs of teams. The modularity and mobility of spaces allow customizing and shaping workplaces according to the specific requirements of each project and team. Examples such as Google's mobile offices demonstrate how furniture, walls, and equipment can be moved to open or close spaces based on changing needs. This encourages collaboration, while providing individual spaces protected from noise.
Technological and societal advances offer incredible opportunities to imagine new and evolving spaces. The challenge will be to promote collaboration, productivity, and employee well-being in a world where we are increasingly on the move and where boundaries are becoming more and more blurred. Companies have the opportunity to offer unique services and environments, tailored to their size and resources while creating attractive workspaces that inspire and motivate teams. Christopher and his team have clearly understood this!
I hope this interview has been a source of inspiration for you. Feel free to leave us a comment to share your opinion. Your feedback is valuable!
See you next week
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