domus - Fiandre Architectural Bureau
Fiandre

Experiential revolution in the new Fiandre showroom

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The Fiandre Architectural Bureau in Castellarano designed by Area 17 expands and articulates as a space to be experienced, integrating all the realms of the project and developing from the interaction of light, materiality and environment.

Recent years have brought a wave of new challenges in the design of collective spaces, commercial or public, and we largely owe such challenges the shift of a certain share of consumption and relationships towards the digital realm: hybrid categories of space such as showrooms are no stranger to such transformation in terms of design values. From focusing on the fruition of the product, on the possibility of seeing and knowing it, they have expanded their identity towards the realm of experience, integrating to the commercial functions a whole complex network of activities that surround products in contributing to define the complex structure of projects, such as meeting, consulting, training, even prefiguring.
It is about working on a new involvement of visitors, built on a deeper meaning to be given to places, a kind of approach we wanted to discuss with Federico Gigetti, partner and senior architect at Area 17, an architecture and interior design firm with a scale that is now international, but with its origins and philosophy deeply rooted in Italian design culture.


Area 17 has recently completed for Fiandre Architectural Surfaces the expansion and restyling of the FAB Fiandre Architectural Bureau showroom in Castellarano, inaugurated on the occasion of Cersaie 2023: it is the brand’s most representative space, with 900 square meters being added to the exhibition area dedicated to ceramic surfaces and different applications, reaching a total 2,000 square meters surface, a significant transformation that raises the degree of program complexity. “The central goal was to be able to provide an authentic and engaging experience for visitors, consistent with a brand's identity and values" as confirmed Gigetti who, together with his team, developed a permeable, multifunctional environment of work, discovery and sharing, which aims to become a place where architects, partners and visitors can feel welcome.

“Our design stems from the idea of an open piazza that unfolds under a large glazed canopy. As in an urban environment, the layout is dynamic and is characterized by volumes, trees and furniture positioned in such a way as to multiply perspectives and generate glimpses that never repeat” the designer continues. And this is the sense in which the whole experience unfolds, a sense of continuity between the scale of the city and that of the home, of the meeting place, a sense of a continuous exchange between sensations of “inside” and “outside”, of converging and then crossing over, encountering different materials and designs as one encounters different stories. “The perimeter of the central piazza in the showroom”, Gigetti expands, “is connoted by a large sculptural portico that allows visitors to discover various environments, with the openings of the portico following one another rhythmically along the path, encountering and allowing access to large exhibition rooms, showcases and niches with insights and material proposals, functional to the storytelling of Fiandre’s surfaces and textures as well as of the Group's technological solutions”.

domus - FAB Fiandre Architectural Bureau
Area 17, Fiandre Architectural Bureau

A landscape of diverse experiences where even less fixed episodes find meaning and place, such as the three architectural volumes that, within the piazza, become temporary sets for the display and representation of specific themes, according to the moment and the need; or areas dedicated to the brand’s spatial identity, such as the presentation of the new Fiandre retail concept in a 75-square-meter portion of space, showing how the brand’s new look will appear in the best partners’ stores; or again, highly attractive and distinctive elements, such as the central area with islands for work and rest marked by tall trees, envisioned by the designers for a specific Fiandre product, from which a discourse on the focus on sustainability can be developed which characterizes the Iris Ceramica Group of which Fiandre is part. The product is the range of eco-active Active Surfaces®, whose four beneficial properties visitors can discover by the ICG Play app by connecting to the installation in the showroom, and entering the world of a sensory journey created with augmented reality.

domus - Fiandre Architectural Bureau
Area 17, Fiandre Architectural Bureau

That is in fact the core the showroom’s experiential program is based on: materials, and the interaction that people and the environment are enabled to develop with them. “We valorized Fiandre’s ceramic surfaces by interpreting them in the perspective of a continuous dialogue between colors, shades, material products and luminous textures", Gigetti confirms.


A landscape where in addition to the brand's surfaces, there is also space for technologies developed by the Group's R&D such as Hypertouch smart surfaces, the DYS Design Yours Slabs technology or the new Attract magnetic laying solution (from the Granitech Business Unit), dialoguing with the architecture of the place and foreshadowing those architectures in which they will be used.

A project that could only spring from close interaction and convergence of brand and designers around the concept of experience as a generative engine for spaces, in dialogue with the natural and human environment, as the designers themselves confirm: “In interpreting the needs of the Fiandre brand, we have given shape to a luminous environment, in which natural light penetrates, and we have created a dynamic, flexible and modifiable space", Gigetti adds. “The well-being of users becomes the central element of the project, surrounding their eyes with beauty, light and even nature, given the direct relationship with the outdoors and greenery."

Fiandre:
www.granitifiandre.com
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