Office in Rome | Italy | 2015 - THE [RADICAL] PROJECT

[MORQ]

With the dynamic business reality and success of the Studio Cristallini, a multi-brands clothes distributor, the owner decided to re-think the image of its headquarters in Rome. For logistic reasons the three level office refurbishment (ground floor, basement floor, and first floor) was organized in three different stages. The Silver Hall, at the ground floor, hosts the main entry, the administration and the director’s office. The Black Canvas, in the basement, accommodates the selling and display areas and a series of amenities. The third stage is currently ongoing.

The Silver Hall (stage one)

The proposal reuses an existing grid-like spatial organization and transforms it into a welcoming open space that also provides privacy both for meetings and the administrative area. The existing space presented a central concrete row of columns and a series of beams connecting them.

The reinforcement of the existing grid with a secondary system of steel beams, re-establishes a physical and visual order, partitioning the space in eight regular bays. The layout unfolds within the re-established grid creating new relations: the entry, staircase, and indoor garden each occupy a different bay while three bays are occupied by the administrative area and the two last are devoted to the director’s office.

A soundproof glass wall physically divides the director’s office and the meeting room from the rest of the space while the tall silver iridescent curtain can occasionally be used to visually conceal the office from the entrance. The administration area and amenities are placed behind a long steel counter high of 1.25 m, concealing without separating the staff from the open space.

A spiral staircase with a rectangular plan and a new skylight connects the three floors (Stage 2 and 3). The suspended hydroponic garden under the skylight contrasts in softness and colours with the sharpness of the design and its materials: aluminium, steel and glass.

Finally, the natural light penetrates from the street façade, filtered by a translucent film. Made out from different metals (aluminium and steel), the hall is filled with a silver and shimmering light that takes different hues as the hours of a day pass by: from a sharp silvery colour in the morning to a gold and warm colour in the evening. Text description by the architects.