Eau Fraîche installation by Lucas Huillet and Alexandre Helwani – All photos are courtesy of Paris Design Week unless stated otherwise.
Design. For Paris Design Week 2024, ceramist and designer Lucas Huillet joined forces with perfumer Alexandre Helwani to create the Eau Fraîche installation in the 18th-century Court of Honour of the Hôtel Soubise, headquarters of the Musée des Archives Nationales.
Photo by Lucas Huillet.
Eau Fraîche consists of two ceramic fountains dispensing delightfully scented water. “We wanted to create an urban island of coolness by evoking sensory illusions.” Explains Huillet. While water is a natural source of freshness, Helwani and Dsm-Firmenich developed a fragrance stimulating the ion channels in our cells that influence the perception of cold. Who even needs air conditioning?”
The installation combines design and perfumery to create “a bridge between matter and the intangible. We carried out this project flirting with neuroscience and phenomenology with a sustainable message,” explain Huillet and Helwani.
The two artists also invite the public to think about global warming and the solutions being considered to tackle it. “Unable to compete with the monumentality of the venue, the design of the fountains focused on the essential: a net of water collected from a container, as a metaphor for preserving resources.”
They are made of Plolygood®, a blue, terrazzo-like material from recycled plastic reels by The Good Plastic Company, which develops and produces cutting-edge solutions for a better future.
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The Eau Fraîche fountains stand out as monoliths on which ceramic enamelled wabi-sabi bowls by Huillet welcome water. The designer also displays scented porcelain bells under the courtyard’s portico.
Historic hotels host some of the best installations of Paris Design Week 2024. Paul Cocksedge explores light, reflection, and the alchemy behind mirror-making with an installation at the Hôtel de Sully and its gardens in Place des Vosges [read more]. At the Hôtel de la Marine, French collective Uchronia created an oversized canopy bed installation, while Pierre Regard showcased an enveloping hammock made of charming wooden slats [read more].
All photos are courtesy of Paris Design Week unless stated otherwise.
Eau Fraîche installation by Lucas Huillet and Alexandre Helwani – Courtesy of Paris Design Week.
