Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY shapes Louis Vuitton’s café and store
At London’s Heathrow Terminal 2, Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY, in collaboration with Louis Vuitton Architecture, completes a new outpost for the French fashion house. The project consolidates the Louis Vuitton store and Le Café by Cyril Lignac into a continuous architectural envelope, a fuselage-like volume that appears to have landed among the steady flow of departing and arriving passengers.
From afar, the volume reads as a dynamic, aerodynamic body. Its thin aluminum surface curves upward as a vertical plane before bending forward into an enveloping form, recalling the logic of aircraft construction. Glass openings are inserted with precision, maintaining visual continuity between café, store, and terminal, and reinforcing the impression of inhabiting a constructed, mobile object momentarily paused.
all images by Henry Woide
A single envelope for retail and dining
The team at Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY merges the shopfront and the café into one inhabitable form. The sculptural volume defines the café as an interior body while extending outward to construct the facade of the store. Conceived as a fully operational coffee space, the structure organizes thresholds, entrances, and circulation with the precision of a calibrated system.
Fornes’ characteristic organic language binds these programs into a continuous geometry, open and breathable. The envelope is designed as a calibrated inner volume that separates the enclosed café from its outer skin, forming an intermediate air plenum. This zone enables a non-conventional airflow system that supports both the café and the terminal environment beyond.
a new outpost for the French fashion house | image courtesy of Louis Vuitton
Material logic and crafted detail
The lower portion of the skin reaches nearly fifty percent porosity, allowing air to circulate directly through the architecture. Achieving this degree of openness is technically demanding, particularly as the perforated skin remains structural and self-supported. At its crown, a circular oculus consolidates structural and technical requirements into a single gesture. Acting as a compression ring, it stabilizes the envelope while integrating fire and safety strategies. Sprinklers, lighting, hanging points, and security systems are embedded within this architectural body.
Up close, the fuselage metaphor sharpens through detail. Ultra-thin aluminum panels are assembled with visible rivets, directly referencing aircraft fabrication techniques. The precise perforation patterns and exposed connections foreground assembly as aesthetic language.
Nested inside, Le Café by Cyril Lignac introduces a softer spatial condition within the continuous movement of the terminal. Articulated openings reveal glimpses of the interior, while the café itself provides a defined pause within the infrastructure of travel.
the Louis Vuitton store and Le Café by Cyril Lignac at London’s Heathrow Terminal 2
a continuous architectural envelope
a fuselage-like volume that appears to have landed among the steady flow of departing and arriving passengers
the volume reads as a dynamic, aerodynamic body
Fornes’ characteristic organic language binds the programs into a continuous geometry
a circular oculus consolidates structural and technical requirements into a single gesture
the thin aluminum surface curves upward as a vertical plane before bending forward into an enveloping form
a calibrated inner volume that separates the enclosed café from its outer skin
reinforcing the impression of inhabiting a constructed, mobile object momentarily paused
project info:
name: Louis Vuitton at Heathrow Terminal 2
architect: MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY | @theverymany, in collaboration with Louis Vuitton Architecture
location: Terminal 2, Heathrow Airport, London, UK
commissioner: Louis Vuitton | @louisvuitton
photographer: Henry Woide
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