Lomazzo Office, Carboncini Company Como HQ Building, Italian Commercial Property, Architecture Photos
Lomazzo Office Como, Italy
Contemporary Italian Architecture for the Carboncini Company – design by Marco Castelletti, Architect, Italy
3 Feb 2009
Lomazzo Office – Carboncini Company HQ
Location: Como, Lombardy, Italy
Date built: 2009
Design: Studio di Architettura Marco Castelletti
Photos: Filippo Simonetti – Brunate (Como)
Lomazzo is situated midway between Como and Milan.
Information + Images from Marco Castelletti:
The Carboncini Company takes office in Lomazzo in 1948; in 1971 the new offices were built which were subsequently renovated in the early 1990s. In 2008, the need to expand the structure becomes an opportunity to describe the idea that underlies its nature.
For once, the meeting did not take place with the designer, but with the manager who is both the client and the executor of the work, the p.i.e. Valentino Carboncini. A discreet man, both in presenting himself and in telling a project that wants to be the manifesto of a very specific company policy.
The new building, recently completed, constitutes the first batch of works (occupied by the spaces dedicated to the production of the projects, where the technicians who follow the works on the construction sites are placed). This will be followed by next year a second phase of six works, concerning instead the renovation of the existing building (with the reception and customer assistance spaces and the more private areas, reserved for administration and management).
A curiosity: at the time of the realization of this phase of the project the functions currently present will be transferred to “temporary offices”, placed in alignment with the long and external side of the first lot, which will later be reused, once they have played their temporary role , such as “construction shacks”.
This project stems from a primary need to increase spaces, but is permeated and supported above all by the desire to improve the conditions of the workplace, increasing both functionality and design aesthetics, in a policy of research of general balance (for the customer and for the figures of those who work there daily): the quality of the working environment (for the permanence of those who carry out daily activities, whose duration is comparable with that in the home) strongly influences the quality of life.
A prerequisite for both the recently implemented and the planned project is respect for the environment, where the word “environment” takes on a double meaning: that is, it is intended both as a working space and as a “natural element”.
The value of the added quality of these is the common denominator that interprets them.
Valentino Carboncini starts from the assumption that “the workplace has become the place where we physically spend most of the day and a good part of our lives; improving the comfort conditions of those who work there therefore means improving the overall quality of the work that takes place. And it is precisely on the quality, and not on the quantity, that our company focuses”.
Hence the desire to create small internal gardens, artificial oases of visual tranquility and inner harmony for the worker, rectangular invasions that simply replicate the perimeter of this first lot, made with an iron and glass structure (choice essentially due to the speed of execution of this construction system). The use of large surfaces at full height with windows allows both to enjoy the spaces dedicated to greenery and to control the movement of goods on the square in front of the warehouses, located on the opposite side of these spaces dedicated to the staff of the technical office. A series of stainless steel wire mesh emphasizes the structural facades, also serving as a sunscreen.
Particular attention has been paid to the insulation of the coverage plan which, in the future, provides for the housing of solar thermal.
In this regard, Valentino Carboncini underlines how important it is to maintain a desire for constant attention and research towards materials and technologies: with this in mind, he has opened a collaboration with the CNR (National Research Council) and the Lombardy Region in order to test a whole series of problems relating to acoustics, making three construction sites available during construction in Como, where the effects of some materials and their installation can be experimented.
“But this …” he underlines “… without ever renouncing the artistic and creative side of the work”. Proof of this is a large mural, 50 meters long by 3 meters high, made on the external wall that runs alongside the headquarters of the company by a writer chosen among the many for being respectful of the built: the artist, in fact, works only on buildings that are expected to be moved.
Works therefore destined to have a fixed term duration. This lively and great pictorial tale, transposition of the noise of the street and the everyday, becomes an integral part of the company’s expansion project through the dialoguing contrast that is created with the monochromatism and silence of the built spaces. A sort of creative message wanted by the entrepreneur to shake the market. A centered goal, considering that the mural has been the subject of research by local schools and involved, during its realization, in some afternoons, also groups of children.
Finally, to emphasize the attention and respect that this company intends to have in the comparison of its interlocutors, a small branch office is scheduled to open in December in the historic center of Como. With its realization, conceived as an “artistic element” characterized by a coordinated image that in any case wants to refer to that of the Lomazzo headquarters, the company aims to create a sort of meeting point, easily accessible and recognizable , used for the exchange of news, to which customers can refer for clarification, definition and signing of contracts.
Lomazzo Office Building images / information from Studio di Architettura Marco Castelletti
Location: Lomazzo, Como, Italy
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