K Office

Office system space between the rectangular plan and central organic forms.

Project details

• Project Name: K Office
• Location of Site: Montecatini Terme (PT), Italy
• Design Team: Lapo Ruffi
• Project Type: Office
• Client: Private
• Built-up Area: 155 sq. mt.
• Date of completion: 2007

Interiors of the central curvilinear shape.

Words from the architect

In Montecatini Terme, inside the Kursaal complex by Aldo Rossi a series of very regular volumes have become a new office system space. The project, born from a dialogue between a rectangular plan from whose perimeter new walls are inserted and central organic forms was built using over 3000 etched glass bricks. The new architecture has become a body of light inside a casing of horizontal lines, generating distributive flows without static divisions and has great functional flexibility.

Interiors of the central curvilinear shape.

The central curvilinear shape, together with the existing boundary creates many different visual sequences, orientated in all directions inside a space, where the tension between the content form and the geometric divisions dominates. The intensity of the light and the colour of the light change during the day, trapped on the glass handles producing different chromatic effects both on the inside and on the outside. In this space created of pure abstraction the curves of the central wave emanate luminosity in the shape of disks of light in satinized aluminum set in irregular fashion and set off by the whiteness of the ceilings.

Interiors of the central curvilinear shape.

The flow of the curves is alternated with iron openings in the translucent membrane and large moveable panels in black coloured wood. Reducing to essentiality the variety of the surfaces and materials, glass, iron, wood, resin the formal rigour continues from the offices into the inside space to the conference rooms where the opal surface lets in natural light expanding the whole. Architecture inside architecture: a translucent glass dimension as solid as it is transparent.

More images

Interiors of the central curvilinear shape.

Interiors of the central curvilinear shape.

Interiors of the central curvilinear shape.

Details of glass block wall.

Details of glass block wall.

View of conference room.

View of conference room.

The central organic form has become a body of light.

The central organic form has become a body of light.

The central organic form has become a body of light.

The central organic form has become a body of light.

The wood and plexiglass model.

The wood and plexiglass model.

The wood and plexiglass model.

The wood and plexiglass model.

The wood and plexiglass model.

Credits

• Text: Lapo Ruffi
• Images: Lapo Ruffi