The Origin: a new watch architecture Marc Maibom designed a new architecture for a watch — purely as a design process, without theoretical intent. The aim was a silhouette with its own identity, not traceable to the established archetypes of the watch industry. No model, no hypothesis. Only the search for a form. Only later did it become visible: the new watch architecture resembled a watchmaker seen from above at the bench. Stable frame. Open centre. The body holds, the hands act. The analogy was not the intention — it was a confirmation. The Transformation Posture Give a child a drawing pen for the first time. They open their arms. The hands move into the space in front of the body. No one has to teach them. The same form everywhere. Keyboard. Steering wheel. Paintbrush. Greeting. Embrace. The body forms the frame — the arms open the space in front of it. What happens there differs each time. The structure is always the same. In an embrace, two people simultaneously open that space toward each other. Both remain themselves. Both are connected. At a concert the same thing on a larger scale. The band toward the front of the stage. The audience toward the band. Energy, attention, affection — in both directions. Nobody merges. Nobody disappears. The frame holds. What flows, flows. This posture has no name. Until now. La Profílée carries this structure as form. Not as illustration — as object. Stable frame. Open centre. Coupling between them. The first scale-invariant metadesign A second property became visible when working further with the form: the same frame could accommodate many different modules. An analogue watch. A digital one. A smartwatch. A shelf. A building. One form, endless expressions. This is not a modular system in the conventional sense. It is a metadesign — an architecture that does not describe one product but the condition under which any number of products can arise. Identity and function are separated. The frame carries what endures. The module carries what changes. The coupling defines how both work together without one destroying the other. Sustainability and circularity are not goals of this architecture — they are its consequence. Obsolescence is not a material problem. It is an architectural one. The structural discovery Then came the question that changed everything: if frame, module, and coupling are the conditions under which an object preserves its identity under transformation — does this apply only to objects? The answer was no. Every system that preserves its identity under transformation is built this way. Not because someone designed it that way — but because it cannot be otherwise. The atom. The cell. The company. The galaxy. All satisfy the same condition. That is La Profílée. Formally: IR = R / (F · M · K) ≤ 1. The form was the point of departure. Everything that followed arose from it. Commended Award, World Brand Design Society 2026. What follows is not a metaphor. It is an attempt to show that the same structural necessity holds at every scale — not because we impose it, but because every persisting system under transformation must satisfy the same condition. La Profílée describes persistence, not origin. Ten scales. From the atom to the universe. The same structure.
Marc Maibom (Sat,) studied this question.