The Orange Cube is a design showroom and office building in the La Confluence quarter of the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon, France.^[1] Designed by the Paris-based architectural firm Jakob + MacFarlane,^[2] the building is best known for its orange color and hole-riddled cube shape,^[1] lending it the nickname “La Mimolette” after the similarly-colored cheese.^[3] The Orange Cube was completed in 2011 at a cost of approximately €12 million, with a 6,284 meter interior.^[4] It occupies a 29×33 meter area on the ground.^[5]

The building is the realization of Jakob + Macfarlane’s winning design in a 2005 competition intended to create interest in the industrial Confluence area,^[1] one requirement of which was the inclusion of negative space; the building’s two conical voids, as well as drawing in cool air, create, according to Architectural Record‘s Jenna M. McKnight, “an extraordinary dialogue with the river, almost bringing it inside.[…]

Read more: Orange Cube – Wikipedia