Formant Studio highlights timeless elegance of birch in Mexico City listening room
Local outfit Formant Studio has transformed an office space in Mexico City into the hi-fi listening room Modular, centring the wood-and-steel-lined room around a custom-made social sofa.
One of the most exciting new studios working in Mexico City, Formant Studio transformed a shared office, which includes workspace for the graphic design studio Simple Moo and well-known architectural photographer Fabián Martínez, into a lounge called Modular.
Working with insights from the occupants, Formant Studio created an immersive listening lounge, designing the sofa, speakers and wall systems especially for the space.
This allowed the studio to build the multi-layer experience of the space's use – primarily hosting – into the design from the start, integrating bodily comfort, visual and sonic dimensions.
"Sound, architecture and image are treated as interconnected layers," said the team.
"None of these elements functions independently. Sound shapes how space is perceived. Space conditions how sound behaves. Image supports atmosphere rather than narrative. Together, they form a single immersive system."
With much of the white-painted walls of the original space still visible, green carpet was laid throughout the space, with a rich birch burl veneer lining the wall at one end.
This serves as a backdrop for a custom black-stained-oak speaker system and a rounded stainless steel DJ booth.
A charming detail geared towards the performers can be found in the top corner of the veneer – a small oval cutout that features a digitised display that can display the names of the performer. Additional speakers were also embedded in the veneer.
Stainless steel elements continue throughout the Formant Studio-designed furniture in space: in the legs of an oak coffee table, in oval side tables and in the bar and console that create a serving area and workspace at the end opposite the sound system.
Central to the space is a custom-designed social sofa. Sitting low to the ground, the stainless-steel legs set the oak base apart from the green carpet, with black upholstered and modular backrest elements.
"Steel-made furniture and objects of desire mix with the timeless elegance of birch wood, highlighting the central piece: a custom-made sectional sofa that aims to bring people together," said the team.
On one wall, Formant Studio created a series of aluminium frames for Martínez's work. These elements sit off the wall and are supported at the top and bottom by poles that connect the frames to the floor and ceiling.
A variety of sourced furniture includes LC2 armchairs, Toio Lamps, a concrete coffee table by Creto and a variety of decorative orbs by Ema Ceramics that tie the space together.
The contributors debuted the space during Mexico City art week, hosting designers, architects, members of the press, and others, with musical performances by local DJs, including Sites, who also performed at a vitrine gallery co-curated by design studio Panorammma.
It furthers the explosion of listening rooms popping up around the world, from a pastel-hued space in a German hotel to a converted space in a communist-era apartment block in Romania.
The photography is by Fabián Martínez.
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