Fondazione Officine Saffi
New spaces for Creativity and Research
Fondazione Officine Saffi has entrusted Donatella Melchiori in collaboration with Paloma Architects with the new concept, the preliminary and executive design and the construction project management of the new headquarters in via Niccolini 35a, in the Chinatown district of Milan.
The spaces cover a total surface area of approximately 600 square meters, including two courtyards.
The design of the new layout was a challenge: a tailor-made renovation for the activities of the Fondazione Officine Saffi, a company that deals with contemporary ceramics at an international level.
A structured space in which the rooms have been designed to fulfill the functions for which they were intended; the essential and minimalist rooms are enriched by a careful strategy in the study of the choice of materials, colors and custom-made furnishings, details that have allowed us to create comfortable, elegant and unique environments.
The Client has carried out some Interior Design interventions that have contributed to a refined and characteristic atmosphere, typical of the Fondazione Officine Saffi.
A space open to the city in the heart of Milan.
The courtyard, like a green oasis, becomes the filter towards the city panorama creating a private place that together with the exhibition gallery, a former 19th-century glassworks, constitutes the hub of the creative environments: the break-bistro area, the offices and two laboratories, one for production and the other for educational activities and courses.
The complex also includes a small apartment used as a residence for artists.
The bistro area was the subject of an installation, 'This room no longer has walls' designed by Francesco Simeti. A work created on slabs with the Design Your Slabs process by Iris Ceramica Group.
The plant design aspect, of considerable importance, was coordinated with the architectural and interior design project, supporting functionality, but not neglecting the aesthetic and artistic sense that is the common denominator of the entire project.
