Excerpt: Uala Office, designed by Hitzig Militello Architects, is organized in two large spaces joined together by a connecting corridor and a courtyard as a lung. A large skin of planked dyed wood covers the walls and roof, generating a large clean space for accessories and installations. The design of the circulation also proposes the possibility of a casual and relaxed use of work by means of a bar that opens its visuals to the central courtyard and a vertical garden.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by Architect] The challenge of designing work spaces always entails a special reflection on the way in which we conceive activity and the development of work. There is no doubt that architecture, in this sense, has much to contribute to the quality of life of the user. With this premise we assumed the project for the second Ualá offices. The project is organized in two large spaces joined together by a connecting corridor and a courtyard as a lung.
Based on the programmatic requirements of the client and the inherent conditions of the space to intervene – a shed in the middle of Palermo neigbourhood – the decision was to segment the total surface according to needs of use in two levels. This generated a reception area facing the main entrance, that serves as an antechamber to a large double-height space – that proposes a single place organized by work islands. This room plays the leading role in the project, giving the possibility of 60 workplaces, all with visuals to an outdoor courtyard vegetated and a vertical garden. full of natural light.
The use of the exposed structure is part of a balance between the old building and the new intervention. The black corrugated sheet metal has a contrasting role, due to its character of contemporary material, in relation to the rustic concrete. In the same way the structure of the ceiling painted in white has a very gentle relationship, in terms of detaching itself from the existing structure through the dark tones. This chromatic change allows to understand a gap between the existing and the new intervention.
A large skin of planked dyed wood covers the walls and roof, generating a large clean space for accessories and installations. There are hidden beams, notched, electrical installations, thermomechanics, etc.
Like the first branch office located in front of this new project, the building has a space for informal meetings and relaxation. Designed as a honeycomb wall, where the interstices with spaces of use, all marked by three different materials, wood, glass and iron.
The decision to use materials, both cladding and furnishings, aims to give the space simplicity and visual calm through the use of noble materials. Both the use of building materials and furnishings, together with the study of lighting (direct / indirect / natural light) and thermomechanical conditions generate a whole that achieves ideal comfort when it comes to conceiving a work space.
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