L'agenceur Magazine n°85
WHEN DESIGN GOES BEYOND WALLS
For a long time, interior architecture and design found their field of expression within four walls. Designing a space, optimizing its uses, creating an ambiance, choosing materials, working with light... these are the missions that define the core of interior design professionals' work. But projects are evolving. So are the expectations of project owners.
Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw a clear line between indoors and outdoors.
In high-end residential settings, outdoor areas are conceived as the natural extension of the living room; kitchens open onto fully equipped spaces; pergolas become genuine open-air lounges. In hospitality, dining, and event venues, patios, rooftops, gardens, and gathering spaces are fully part of the experience offered to users. Materials echo one another, lines extend, circulation paths dissolve. The outdoors is no longer mere backdrop: it is an integral part of the project.
This shift is far from trivial. It reflects a new way of designing living spaces, where comfort, usage, and overall experience take precedence over physical boundaries. More and more design professionals are working on these hybrid spaces, in collaboration with architects, landscapers, and outdoor furniture manufacturers.
It therefore seemed natural to us that l'Agenceur should embrace this movement. The more observant among you will probably have noticed a change to our magazine's subtitle: from now on, it will be called l'Agenceur – Indoor-Outdoor Architecture.
Our identity is not changing. Interior design will remain, more than ever, at the heart of our editorial focus. But we have chosen to broaden our perspective when projects call for it. Because a design project no longer systematically stops at the threshold of a bay window. Because certain innovations, certain materials, certain fixtures now find their place just as much outside as inside. And because the professionals who read us now design spaces in their entirety.
This opening up is not a change of direction, but a logical evolution — that of a profession which no longer thinks solely in terms of rooms, but in terms of journeys, uses, and continuity of spaces. In essence, it's not about talking more about the outdoors; it's above all about continuing to talk about design, wherever it is expressed.
Brice Alexandre Roboam