It's a rare showroom that displays the customers as much as the goods. But an architectural use of Panelite's own product has rendered the company's New York headquarters a veritable panorama of elusive transparency and misleading opacity. Not that anyone minds.

"We have a lovefest with our clients," boasts company cofounder Christian Mitman, and the showroom is indeed an ode to the translucent honeycomb panels that he developed with cofounder Emmanuelle Bourlier. Mitman and Panelite product specialist Hallie Taylor designed every inch of the 1,000-square-foot showroom to highlight the versatility of their proprietary material, showing firsthand the ways that it can modulate light, provide privacy, and aesthetically define an interior.

The reception area—its curved desk produced in collaboration with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture—is defined on one side by "directionally transparent" panels. The closer you stand to them, the more opaque they seem. Yet it's easy see through if you're farther away, like the employees in the office behind these panels. A meeting alcove is enclosed by another Panelite product, a molded cast-polymer freestanding wall system, which Mitman sees as the future of offices.

"People come to us for a translucent solution to their problems," he says. The resolution gets clearer all the time.

Clockwise from top left: Panelite made this AH/FC aluminum honeycomb panel for the booth of the StoryCorps oral-history project. Panelite's molded cast-polymer AO-RVLB wall curves to create a meeting alcove next to the New York showroom's reception area. Layered with tempered glass, cell honeycomb Panelite looks transparent close-up. In reception, a custom Panelite desk sits in front of a logo panel of AO/RC Panelite. The waiting area is furnished with an Arne Jacobsen armchair and Tom Dixon ball lamps. PE/RO Panelite tops a café table. In the conference room, Dixon's chairs are grouped beneath a pendant fixture by Bertjan Pot.

BOOTH PANEL: O-R-G (CUSTOM GRAPHICS); BIG APPLE VISUAL GROUP (PRINTING, LAMINATING); 3M (FILM). PANELS, PARTITIONS, DISPLAY SLIDERS, FRAMING SYSTEMS, CUSTOM DESK, CUSTOM TABLETOP: PANELITE. SLIDING HARDWARE: HFELE. TASK CHAIR: TOPDEQ. ARMCHAIR: FRITZ HANSEN THROUGH TROY; HALLINGDAL (FABRIC). LOUNGE CHAIR: STUDIO TECNICO EMMEMOBILI THROUGH PROPERTY. COFFEE TABLE: CARL HANSEN THROUGH TROY. STOOL: E15 THROUGH TROY. BALL FIXTURES, SIDE CHAIRS: TOM DIXON THROUGH PROPERTY. PENDANT FIXTURE: BERTJAN POT THROUGH MOSS. FLOOR INSTALLATION: HOFFMAN SEAMLESS FLOORS. LIGHTING SUPPLIER: INTERNATIONAL LIGHTS. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: GREAT WILL CONSTRUCTION.