Duende Restaurant**
A restaurant can be visually spectacular and still fail at intimacy. For Duende, the Pierre Gagnaire restaurant inside Maison Albar – L’Imperator in Nîmes, the challenge was to make a grand historic setting feel focused, quiet and personal at the scale of a table. At Naço, I worked within a three-designer team to translate the interior concept into bespoke furniture and technically resolved elements ready for manufacture.
My contribution
Industrial design · Bespoke furniture · 3D development · Manufacturing documentation
The team
3 industrial designers
Year
2019
Designing the experience at the scale of the guest
The wider hotel renovation established a sophisticated architectural language. For Duende, the challenge was to bring that vision down to the human scale: sightlines, comfort, circulation and the feeling of privacy between tables. Furniture was not decoration added afterwards; it was part of how the dining experience was composed.
Translating art direction into manufacturable objects
I developed bespoke furniture and interior elements from concept sketches through detailed design. Each piece had to preserve the intended proportions and material expression while resolving dimensions, assemblies, stability and integration with the room.
Using 3D as a coordination tool
The 3D models helped us test scale and relationships between elements, identify conflicts and align the design intent with technical requirements before production.
Protecting coherence across contributors
A hotel renovation brings together architects, interior designers, fabricators and hospitality specialists. The technical drawings and manufacturing documentation became a shared reference, helping the custom elements retain the same design language from concept to production.
Outcome
Duende opened in 2019 as part of the renovated Maison Albar – L’Imperator. The restaurant is still operating and is now presented by the hotel as a two-Michelin-star address signed by Pierre Gagnaire.
The stars reward the culinary team, not the interior design. The relevant outcome for my work is a built environment in which bespoke pieces moved from artistic direction to manufacture and became part of a live hospitality experience.
This project shows where industrial design can add value between an architectural concept and the physical, day-to-day experience of a place.