The Wood Construction Forum invited smarin to join stakeholders in construction, timber design, and bio-/geo-sourced materials. An opportunity to question our practices and explore new uses toward a sustainable and virtuous transition.

Geometric Life × Wood Reuse

An innovative solution presented at the Wood Construction Forum, Grand Palais, Paris.

Design session RE-PLAY

The Geometric Life construction system can intelligently combine reclaimed materials with new components to meet both aesthetic and technical demands. By sourcing reclaimed wooden boards and new joining elements—such as cork blocks and beech dowels—it ensures optimal stability and functionality.

The goal is to involve partners such as associations, foundations, municipalities, and reintegration programs depending on the project, in a circular economy session.

The core idea is to conduct workshops where, for example, school users and their partners can self-produce the furniture.

Towards Healthier Environments

A Polytypological and Reversible System

A composition of solid wood shapes (oak boards, beech pegs) and cork blocks forms the basis for building highly stable structures: wood joints “without nails or screws” that are both extremely strong and fully demountable.

These components are easy to maintain and renovate over time. They follow standard formats and enable infinite functional constructions: storage, desks, loungers, sofas, armchairs, linear walls, partitions, sideboards, huts… This exceptional adaptability to built environments turns moves and transitions of all kinds into simple pleasures.

Caring for Air Quality

Each piece is made from pure, untreated materials carefully selected for their natural qualities:

• Cork is known for its antistatic, thermal, acoustic, and ecological properties. Harvesting cork helps preserve forest ecosystems. Its mechanical and physical properties are outstanding: lightness, elasticity, rot-resistance, waterproofing, and long-lasting durability.
• The wooden pieces are crafted from untreated solid oak and beech.

Geometric Life for OFFICETOPIE

Officetopie is a collection of workplace layout systems designed to improve the overall office dynamic. Officetopie systems support “high-dimensional cognitive spaces”—environments where tasks, information, and interactions are interconnected and layered rather than clearly separated.

Our tools help users navigate and thrive in these dynamic work settings, enhancing their ability to manage complex projects and multifaceted responsibilities.

These designs support what we call “idiorythmic environments”—spaces that balance individual work rhythms with collective needs. This enables personalized work paces that resonate with and enrich the team's overall tempo.

Regenerative Design

The approach is regenerative and actively contributes to the vitality of users and work environments. These designs foster diverse work dynamics, encourage antifragility, and help users flourish through the changes and challenges of the workplace.

Geometric Life for ECOLETOPIE

Ecoletopie is a classroom layout proposal featuring new pedagogical practices based on system-furniture and tool-objects. In this classroom, children can develop their biomechanical potential, become aware of posture, experience the importance of the collective, and practice a form of aesthetic, sensory interaction—without the goal of producing or performing. A time dedicated to trial and exploration, as a counterpoint to digital speed and abundance.

Object as Process

Since 2003, the studio smarin has been exploring habits in our relationships with exchange and objects.

We are interested in the object as a process. Objects choreograph flows, work, behaviors, and interactions.

The creation of an object helps shape the world. The choice of materials defines a landscape of extraction and transportation. The scale of production shapes the nature of work—and, by extension, the living conditions of the workers involved.

Behavior is dictated by an object’s use: its strength, practicality, playability, capacity to distinguish or exclude. Thus, a mode of relationship emerges—an ongoing production of exchanges, consumer networks, and markets. The object generates the world of our waste, which we must know how to transform again in order to maintain balance.

smarin collaborates across disciplines—arts, sciences, sociology, and politics—to approach global projects.