At LEROY MERLIN, attention takes shape

Transparency, acoustics, and thoughtful design define the new offices at Lisbon’s World Trade Center

The new Iberian headquarters of LEROY MERLIN at Lisbon’s World Trade Center faced a key challenge: how to organize a complex, open-plan office that balances visibility, acoustic comfort, and a strong sense of identity. Dvilux, Etoile’s long-standing partner in Portugal, offered a precise solution: the entire floor is structured around a network of glass partitions, creating clear spatial organization while maintaining openness and flow throughout the space.

The layout makes the project’s logic immediately clear. A central corridor gives access to meeting rooms, workrooms, and spaces for individual focus, all enclosed by full-height partitions with black-painted profiles.
The grid created by these partitions is not neutral. It establishes a clear rhythm and direction, organizing the space without closing it off. Functions are separated but remain visually connected. The result is a plan that is easy to understand at a glance and simple to navigate in everyday use.

The Ritmica D2 System as a Spatial Framework

The choice of the Ritmica D2 glazed system is not secondary to the project; it is its compositional backbone. From the outset, the system reveals its ability to construct controlled perspectives: layers of transparency overlap at varying distances, creating visual depth without introducing dispersion. Full-height matte black doors add a note of material refinement, balancing the potential coolness of glass and metal with a more tactile, grounded presence.

Ritmica D2 was developed to meet the demands of visually dense environments: slim profiles, clean junctions, and acoustic performance integrated directly within the glazing itself. Within the LEROY MERLIN offices, this dual nature — both aesthetic and technical — finds a coherent application. The focus rooms opening onto the corridor are perceptible yet never intrusive; the work taking place inside is visible, but not exposed. It is precisely this balance that the project seeks to achieve: transparency as a governing principle of space, rather than the absence of boundaries.

Invisible Quality: The Role of Acoustics

One of the most striking aspects of daily life in a workspace is how sound is managed. In an open-plan office designed for high visual transparency, controlling acoustics is the real technical challenge: spaces that flow visually still need to filter, absorb, and contain sound.

Recycled PET plays a key role in achieving this balance. Integrated into ceiling panels, wall coverings, and non-glass partitions, it shapes an environment where the quiet quality is immediately perceptible, even when the office is bustling with activity. Beyond its environmental credentials, PET is prized for its design versatility: it can be customized in colors, textures, and thicknesses, blending effortlessly with glazed surfaces to maintain a seamless visual experience.

Phone Booths as Micro-Architectures of Focus

Within the office floor, phone booths—self-contained acoustic cabins for calls, video meetings, or focused work—serve a purpose that goes far beyond their physical footprint. They are devices that give individuals a slice of private space within a collective, transparent environment. These booths respond to a real need in contemporary work life: unplanned moments of concentration, when one must step out of shared visibility without leaving the operational flow. In this way, they become more than functional enclosures—they are micro-architectures that shape how people interact with space, privacy, and focus in the modern workplace.

Coherence as a Design Value

In this project, LEROY MERLIN has created a space that reflects a clear work model: open to collaboration yet protective of individual focus, visually continuous yet acoustically differentiated, formally rigorous yet perceptually comfortable.

Divilux translated these requirements into a functional spatial system, where the technology of Etoile products is never an end in itself but serves a tangible, measurable environmental quality.

Perhaps this is the most precise meaning of the word design: not the sum of its components, but the result of their relationship—how elements interact to create a cohesive, liveable, and effective workspace.