The Orange Cube is a design showroom and office building in the La Confluence quarter of the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon, France. Designed by the Paris-based architectural firm Jakob + MacFarlane,[1] the building is best known for its orange color and hole-riddled cube shape,[2] 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 interior. It occupies a footprint.[4]
The building is the realization of Jakob + Macfarlane's winning design in a 2005 competition intended to create interest in the industrial Confluence area, 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 Jenna M. McKnight, "an extraordinary dialogue with the river, almost bringing it inside."[5] Others, including Telerama Luc Le Chatelier and Valérie Disdier of the "Maison de l'architecture Rhône-Alpes" were more critical of the design. The Orange Cube's two facades are covered by twenty-five perforated, thermo-lacquered aluminum screens, all made locally.[6]