area 121 | industrial building

architect: modostudio

location: Nola, Italy

year: 2011

The project is located in a strategic industrial area, well connected with the main highway which bring traffic from the north to the south part of Italy. The site area is highly visible from the highway, and the client requests were to create a very strong and recognazible facade.
The project, even in its extreme simplicity composition, aims to transmit the values of innovation, comfort, technology, relax and brand representation. Due to that, the facade represents the image of the building. It covers over 2.000 sqm of company offices on two storeys. The offices are located in the south part of the building along the short side of the building. All the offices are faced towards the Vesuvio Vulcan. The ground floor hosts the main entrance hall which is located in a baricentric area. The main hall brings employees and clients to the other office departments: marketing, administration, design, product, retail, direction and the showroom. The offices are designed in order to guarantee the best flexibility. Floating floors and modular lights are able to give the possibility to modify the interior layout of the work places and of the vertical partitions. Most of the vertical partitions are made of structural glass with the aim to improve the natural light inside the offices.
The neutral and light colors materials of the interior gives a very relaxing atmosphere. From the office windows employees are able to experience a beautiful view of the Vesuvio vulcain, thanks to the visual connections study during the design phase.
The offices are directly connected with the logistic area of 11.500 sqm. The logistic area stores all the products (clothes and accessories) of the company which ownes more than 100 showrooms in Italy and Europe. This area is divided in nine different sub-areas, each of one hosts particular products and they have got loading and unloading gates on both sides. All around the building the parking areas allow to host more than 70 cars and trucks. Due to the fact that the structure and the main envelope was made of precast concrete, we designed the main façade with the idea of pushing at the extreme value the use of the concrete. Reinforced concrete panels with a rhomboidal pattern in different sizes characterizes the main facade. These concrete panels are fixed to the main structural façade through a steel frame system. The panels are of 4 different sizes. The position and the rotation of the panels give to the facade a various image. The windows are realized opening a side of the panels which are connected with the main structural envelope through metal sheet plates. The main façade, is realized with these particular panels on the first floor, while on the ground floor the façade is a continuous glass curtain wall.with strong low emission value able to give the best comfort inside the office. All the other side of the building are made by precast concrete panels with a vertical texture. The loading and unloading gates will be covered with a metal roof totally integrated in the precast concrete structure. The roof hosts a photovoltaic plant of 550Kw powered.