A new venue.
Only one way to open it.
Client Hife
Event type Opening
Participants 70
Date 7 Oct 2025
A coliving opens its doors at the Bassin à Flots.
We made Bordeaux the guest of honour in every glass, every plate, every brushstroke.
The challenge
Inaugurate a new living space in Bordeaux by making its local roots the signature of the evening.
A coliving is more than a building. It’s a promise of living together, of belonging to a neighbourhood, of being part of a city. The Bassin à Flots, Bordeaux’s new creative hub, deserved an inauguration that was both a celebration of the venue and a love letter to the city.
Our mission
Design an evening that immediately says what this place wants to be. Bordeaux at heart, creative in form, warm in its welcome. So that the first guests leave feeling they’ve witnessed something genuine and wanting to come back.
A venue only truly begins to exist
What have we built? Our 5 Culture Makers Moments
A 100% Bordeaux set design:
Wine barrels, XXL glasses, vine leaves, grapes: a décor that immediately roots the venue in its region without tipping into folklore. A generous, organic aesthetic that turns a brand-new space into one that already feels lived in.
Fire-pit cocktail dinner:
local produce on the plate, with chipirons, duck hearts, oysters at a dedicated stand, and canelés and dunes blanches for dessert. A menu built like a gastronomic tour of Bordeaux: local, generous, convivial. The fire pit as an invitation to stay, warm up and linger.
Bespoke watercolour workshop
Bordeaux scenes painted with wine by a local artist. Guests watch the works come to life as they sip and taste.
The inaugural gesture
Bordeaux artist Migloo created a painting especially for the inauguration, gifted to the venue and designed for it. A founding act: the artwork that marks its coming into existence, the visual signature that will remain once the guests have gone. All brought to life with immersive, creative video mapping.
Lillet stand on the rooftop
Bordeaux at 360°. The city as a backdrop, deckchairs, a glass of Lillet. The rooftop as the evening’s top floor and the venue’s first gift to its residents. The view over Bordeaux as the closing argument.
Behind the scenes
Building local coherence without turning it into a postcard
Barrels, chipirons, Lillet, local artists: every element roots the venue in Bordeaux. But the risk with a Bordeaux theme is slipping into caricature. We chose genuine partners, living artists, local produce, not themed-party props.
Migloo as a founding gesture
Commissioning a Bordeaux artist to create a work specifically for this venue is a strong editorial act. This painting doesn’t decorate the evening; it inaugurates the venue’s identity. It says: this coliving belongs to an artistic scene, to a living city, to a culture it intends to keep alive.
We finish on a high, quite literally
The Lillet stand on the rooftop overlooking Bordeaux is the moment guests truly understand where they are. The whole city as a selling point.
The watercolour workshop as the invisible link between speeches, tasting and cocktails
The watercolour workshop creates a gentle rallying point. You can stop by for two minutes or twenty. It gives people something to look at, comment on and share, and it naturally introduces the venue’s creative and artistic dimension.
A venue is
You’re opening a venue, launching a project, inaugurating a space.
We know how to make that moment the first chapter of a great story.
