Experience
Experience
IdentityTypefaceWebsite
“The marvellous is the eruption of contradiction within the real.”
— Louis Aragon, Paris Peasant, 1926
Experience is a contemporary architecture office based in Paris, France, founded and led by architects Tristan Chadney, Laurent Esmilaire, and Éric Lapierre. The practice is grounded in an “architecture of reason,” restraint, and economy of means. It is named after a Jimi Hendrix’s song, conveying a sense of intensity, curiosity, and freedom.
Alongside architectural rigour and teaching, the work draws from a wider cultural field: music, literature, film, and art. From the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix to Apollinaire, Ginsberg, Hockney, Lou Reed, and Chris Marker, these references create a continuous atmosphere in which architecture and culture remain inseparable. Humour and joy also run through the work — a lightness that keeps it open, human, and alive.
Surrealism quietly underpins this sensibility. It opens architecture to moments of the merveilleux, where perception shifts and unexpected connections emerge within the real. This connects to Le Corbusier’s understanding of colour and material as active and structural elements rather than surface decoration. Surprise emerges through contradiction and unexpected meaning within precise, rational systems.
Within this space — between the beauty of necessity and the possibility of the marvellous — the visual identity took shape. We designed a poetic system built around two custom-drawn typefaces, a new website, and a complete ecosystem of office materials. Together, they form a framework that stays precise yet open, allowing the work to remain grounded while holding lasting surprise.
2022–2026
