Ciguë, a Paris design studio known for blending raw materials with refined details, has completed a new 5,000-square-meter headquarters for Caudalie, the French vinotherapy brand. The project occupies 13 Rue Pavée in the Marais district, inside two protected hôtels particuliers and a 19th-century industrial building.
Work began in 2022.
A rare mix of old and new under one roof
The site includes a 15th- and 16th-century mansion, an 18th-century one, and an Eiffel-style iron structure at the rear. The studio worked within a VEFA off-plan development framework alongside Mars Architecture, meeting the constraints of listed buildings while adding a geothermal heating and cooling system.
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What makes the project stand out is its program. It’s not a typical office fit-out. The building brings together Caudalie’s creative, marketing, commercial, and finance teams. It also includes a public spa with seven treatment rooms, the brand’s first yoga studio, and a 630-square-meter event area for the French cosmetics industry. On the ground floor, a lobby-like area handles informal meetings, breaks, and mobile work. The studio calls the architecture “hospitable, almost public.”
Materials carry signatures from earlier boutiques
The material palette is familiar to anyone who follows the studio: Frontenac limestone quarried near Bordeaux, cooperage oak staves used as wall cladding, and stainless steel in details that reference a laboratory. These same materials appeared in earlier brand boutiques in Bordeaux, Brussels, New York, and Paris. Here they’re scaled up for the building. Oak frames, joinery, and custom workstations structure the open-plan floors. Natural light comes through a full-height glass and steel façade.
Exposed concrete ceilings stay rough.
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Co-founder Guillem Renard said: “We have transposed, at the scale of the headquarters, the material vocabulary refined through the boutiques, but above all, we have worked to make the everyday workplace a space of care.”
Space as a reflection of brand values
That idea — a caring space — is central to the project. Rue Pavée argues that what a brand puts into its products should extend to where its people work. For the studio, whose practice focuses on the relationship between bodies, materials, and place, the position feels consistent. For the company, celebrating its 30th anniversary, it’s a way to mark the milestone. The collaboration continues with a renovation of the historic Les Sources de Caudalie spa at Château Smith Haut-Lafitte in Martillac.
One skeptic might note that delivering such layered heritage restoration within a VEFA framework — where the building is sold before completion — often forces compromises between preservation and commercial timelines.
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Finished work shows the studio handled those trade-offs without obvious sacrifice.
The result lands in the studio’s sweet spot: rigorous, warm, and never trying too hard. That phrase again — a space of care — sounds almost too polished, but the execution backs it up.
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