The new challenge of DEGW and FUD of the Lombardini22 group: to revive an elegant and timeless space with a black-blue essence.
A reality projected into the future in continuity with its great history. This is the challenge that FC Internazionale Milano has placed on DEGW and FUD, Lombardini22 Group brands dedicated respectively to the integrated design of work environments and physical branding, in the design of its new headquarters in Milan. A project that comes from stimulating premises and with excellent prospects for success, starting from the location.
The Corner, located in a strategic position on the new map of Milan, on the corner of Viale della Liberazione and Via Melchiorre Gioia, is a building designed by Atelier (s) Alfonso Femia which is the result of the complete redevelopment of a structure of the Seventies. We are in the heart of the Garibaldi-Repubblica area, just a few minutes from the city center, in a place well served by all the urban mobility infrastructures.
Inter moves into the spaces of The Corner leaving the old headquarters of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and gaining on the surface and breath, with ample and comfortable spaces for public areas dedicated to the relationship with guests and customers and with new spatial formulas for activities operational and managerial that articulate the concepts of innovation, sharing, speed, internationality, leisure, movement and well-being in an environment of great representative intensity. A building - owned by Generali - whose new strength can be defined as Inter.
THE PROJECT NUMBERS
The new headquarters of Inter occupies the last five floors (from the 6 ° to the 10 °) of a wing of the footprint of the The Corner building (in the shape of an L, the overall standard floor is approximately 1.700 square meters) for a total area of 4.000 sqm in which workstations are distributed over 200. The 800 sqm of the terrace above is added to the indoor surface and the whole forms a working environment with a pleasant natural brightness and abundant visuals towards the urban exterior.
Opportunities that the project interprets with a progressive stacking plan that modulates the different floors, reserving for the operation a greater visual relationship with the nearest urban environment and the more panoramic functions with ample views of the city. Thus in an upward progression the 6 °, 7 ° and 8 ° floors are dedicated to operational functions, the 9 ° used as a shared area for guests and meetings with external realities, the 10 ° to the Executive and Sport areas and the '11 ° to the terrace.
4.000 m²
200 workstations
800 sqm of terrace
PROJECT CONCEPT
Located in one of the most dynamic areas of Milan's regenerative development, the new Nerazzurri headquarters makes use of an urban metaphor as a design concept in its operational areas.
The areas are characterized by a balanced alternation between workspace and media, and have been treated with sobriety, infusing offices with a warm and domestic atmosphere with wood finishes and widespread presence of green.
Corporate recognizability is resolved lightly in the background, thanks to careful combinations of colors and materials (for example, floors are in blue carpets in closed offices, in gray carpets in open spaces and in gray vinyl in circulation), and with peaks of communicative intensity in strategic points of space.
A flexible and transparent space, articulated by special objects such as walls equipped in their thickness with niches and places of conversation, or open structures that delimit, in open space, informal areas with comfortable seats.
An elegant space, where the brand is treated in a way that respects the established values and the internationality of the company.
SHARED SPACE: THE 9 ° PLAN
Values equally declined in the shared areas of the 9th floor, but "reinforced" by the vocation of representation and communication of the functions present: the main reception, business card for the whole company, with the social wall that conveys content directly from the official social channels; the Trophy Room, a circular island of trophies in an open environment crowned by a continuous ring of suspended images, like a frieze of icons in motion (an exhibition solution that is also the result of co-design workshops conducted by Alessandro Adamo, director of DEGW) ; the Media Room, also dedicated to training sessions, iconically highlighted by a ceiling of linear lights that design a football field; Inter Heritage, an experiential place where the history of the team lives, with the exhibition of memorabilia and the celebration of the Club supported by a fifth technological window; the Clock room, where the bar counter and the various seats also invite to a food & beverage conviviality, whose name derives from the restaurant where the Club was founded.
Completed by a lounge and two reconfigurable meeting rooms, they are all flexible and adaptable to multiple uses. As thought for the guests, the 9 floor represented for FUD the most complex and stimulating area of intervention, in which to fully bring out the essence of the Inter brand.
EXECUTIVE FLOOR AND TERRACE
Between closed offices, break area and a boardroom with an intense blue carpet, a corridor with a wood panel with a warm domestic effect and a polished stone-effect ceramic floor create a long promenade immersed in the Inter corporate world: a path that finds its peak in a lowered structure where the brand is the focal point of the whole perspective.
Dark blue, wood, polished ceramics, light and transparency make up the ample spaces articulated in multiple functions. Which is like an introduction to the large terrace above: an open and unfolded platform over the city that can accommodate guests for private events, DJ sets, meetings, lunches, moments of relaxation, protected by pergolas and vegetable backdrops, stimulated by lawns dedicated to the game, where the theme of green and natural materials is fully developed.
PHYSICAL BRANDING INTER HQ AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL
A brand is much more than a symbol, a sign or a graphic language, the office is its holistic representation.
FUD, a Lombardini22 Group brand specializing in branding and communication, in a "co-creative" collaboration with the Club and with Alkemy, has created a space that can or could be only and exclusively Inter, eliminating the need to see the logo .
Starting from the history of the team and its values, Physical branding has transformed spaces into communication tools through an ad hoc projected intervention.
The goal achieved was to create a true brand experience, completing the architectural space and generating memorability in the people who interact with it, facilitating orientation.
BORDERLESS AND TIMELESS
The project concept started from a deep knowledge of the team's history and values. The desire to shape a decided, regular, elegant architectural space with a strong personality emerges, with a strongly identifying language rooted in the Milanese culture and, at the same time, facing the world.
The essence of the Inter brand is summarized by the phrase that concludes the constitutive act of the Club: "We are brothers of the world". Brothers of the World is now a signature, recognized and adopted by all the Nerazzurri fans in the world.
The same signature was applied to the new headquarters, leveraging two intrinsic aspects of Brothers of the World: borderless and timeless. For the FUD + Alkemy project, the concept of borderless has guided the content of the new site. Timeless, on the other hand, is the treatment chosen to dress it: a timeless style capable of uniting multiple eras and speaking to all generations.
HUMAN
The intervention of Physical branding involved the whole site, first of all the sign system, with pictograms developed on the concepts of asymmetry and movement based on the abstraction of the flags of the nations that marked the history of the team.
Each meeting room has its own brand identity, each opens the door to internationality and is entirely dedicated to a country in the world linked to the history of Inter. In this case, giving a name to FUD has meant telling a story, transforming the space into an immersive brand experience.
One element to which FUD paid particular attention was the chromatic calibration. The power of color in flags is that of being able to represent the soul of the nation, with semantic parallels between colors and patriotic meanings. The goal was to create "talking" rooms, able to tell a story and entertain and amaze guests.
We are really happy with this project - says Alessandro Adamo, DEGW director and Lombardini22 partner - because it is the result of a great process of participation and co-design. A process that has seen us literally immersed in the Nerazzurri world, to breathe the atmosphere that has fueled what we were doing day by day.
We would like to thank all those who have accompanied us in this experience, in particular President Steven Zhang who has never failed to offer his precious collaboration.
The result fully satisfies us - concludes Adamo - because we believe we have succeeded in representing a complex reality in a building that is both a workplace, special events and presences, media and communication, sports and above all powerful collective imagery.
Project Information
Client: International Milan 1908 Spa
Place: Milan, Viale della Liberazione 16-18
Area: 4.000 square meters
Type: Offices
End of works: 2019
Building: Atelier (s) Alfonso Femia
DEGW: interior design, fit out, construction management
Client leader: Alessandro Adam
Design leader: Giuseppe Pepe
Senior architect: Valeria Romanelli
Architect: Maria Giovanna Manfredi, Lucia Torchiana
FUD: Physical Branding, art direction
Client leader: Domenico D'Alessio
Design leader: Lorenzo Casanova
Designer: Nicolò Gerico, Pietro Cedone, Paolo Piccinini
Photography: Marco Cappelletti
