Volt Face: studio 5•5 designs furniture starting from light switches and sockets

For Paris Design Week, Schneider Electric entrusted its Odace range to studio 5•5. The designers did not see it as a technical accessory to fit in, but as a raw material in its own right: from this reversal came VOLT FACE, a collection of lights and furniture in which sockets and switches become the main motif.

On a building site, switches are almost always chosen last, after the walls, the floors, the furniture. Vincent Baranger and Anthony Lebossé of studio 5•5 chose to reverse that process. "We didn't design an object to put a switch in it," they explain. "We designed every piece of VOLT FACE starting from the switch." The result is a wall light, a table, a bedside table, a pendant and several lamps, in which the Odace components are no longer hidden but staged.

What Volt Face turns around

For the designers, the Odace range works like a toolbox: every socket, every switch becomes an element to combine, repeat and assemble at will. The result is also an invitation to play — objects we touch dozens of times a day without noticing suddenly get our attention again, between the urge to test, to press, and to wonder "does it work if I press here?". The project's material is visual and tactile, but also acoustic, down to the famous "click", particularly refined in the range's design.

Studio 5•5, an iconoclastic approach to design

Founded in August 2003 by Vincent Baranger, Jean-Sébastien Blanc, Anthony Lebossé and Claire Renard, studio 5•5 made its name twenty years ago with Réanim, the "medicine of objects", the starting point of its thinking on committed, sustainable design. Blending pragmatism, humour and commitment, its multidisciplinary work — objects, spaces, interventions in public space, art direction — has entered many French state collections; its founders were made Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. This autumn the studio is working on the new Schneider Electric headquarters, a large urban project, and a range of reclaimed furniture due out in November.

Why it matters to us

A global leader in energy technology, Schneider Electric offers with Odace a range of electrical fittings where design and use are one — iconic for its "circle in a square" shape. A modular system, it combines plates and materials (concrete, terrazzo, copper, brass, ceramic, enamel) into bespoke compositions, and works with the connected Wiser solution to control lighting, heating or shutters. The collection received an iF Design Award 2025.

Where to see it

Volt Face was shown from 10 to 14 September 2026 at La Factory, Galerie Joseph, in the 3rd arrondissement, during Paris Design Week. It will be on show again at the Equip'Hotel fair, from 2 to 5 November 2026.

The Beyit move: photograph a piece and scan it — the tool tells you who makes it, at what price, and what exists around it.