Since 2005, the year in which Giacomo De Amicis founded deamicisarchitetti, the Italian studio gives rise to projects that combine memories and contemporaneity. Its specific language, which is composed of advanced criteria of environmental sustainability, comfort, technology and attention to the context, applies to the most diverse areas. Working on the scale of the building, deamicisarchitetti designs residential, hospitality and leisure spaces. However, what has always been a constant in its design is the theme of the workspace.

Beginning with the very first collaboration, over the years the Italian studio has been able, also thanks to a number of important recognitions, to build a trusted corporate clientele with which it has established a continuous relationship. Because workspace still remains one of the firm’s main business lines today, due to such a privileged point of view, deamicisarchitetti is able to cross the trends of recent years and embrace their innovations. We talked about it with the architect Rossella Destefani, partner at deamicisarchitetti.

In the office world evolution is nonstop. Talking of our experience, we have seen motions of change since we realized our first office project, namely the Headquarters of Value Partners in Milan, with which in 2008 we won the Arches Prize. Since then and with every customer, we have been able to move forward in ideas and experimentation, well aware that the professional world could no longer be what it had been until that moment.

Among the different themes, what I can say with certainty has changed is the non-standardization of spaces. We are witnessing a multiplication of spaces that allow a number of uses. What is particularly important for us is to think about the fact that in the office you have to find different conditions from those of the house or a place of informal sociality. The issue of relations is fundamental here, and we therefore believe that the office should be the place for networking and establishing relationships in the first place.

If it is true that, compared to twenty years ago, today the workstations are almost always open, on the other hand we believe that a further step forward can be the characterization of the environment. That is to say, if once the pivot of office design was productivity and brand identity, with spaces recognizable through a specific aesthetic language, the natural evolution of this aspect has been the construction of spaces that offer more means of work organization. The concept is to build different environments, each with a specific identity and with more familiar characters, which do not necessarily have to be linked to a company logo and where people’s needs are placed at the center.

Our work leads us to think continuously about the issues of change. Surely the aspect on which we currently focus is the very concept of the office building. For years we have found ourselves working on buildings that had more or less the same characteristics, that is to say large casings with a central body, bathrooms and large glass facades. The internal customization therefore reflected the characteristics of a “box” with repetitive features.

However, over the past three years, the tendency has been that of thinking about the building as a reversible organism. Today, for instance, an office building may need to be converted into a hotel or residence. Surely, ensuring maximum flexibility on every aspect is difficult, but there are some interchangeable functions we can work on. These possibilities are long-established by the model of the historic buildings of the late nineteenth or early twentieth century of Italian cities. Indeed, in most of the centers of our cities we find edifices that once were noble residences, then became notary offices and now have been transformed into hotels.

We must therefore re-think structures that can be subject to a shift in their intended use in order to meet the new needs of our society. How do we do this? I will give you an example, perhaps banal. First of all, equipping buildings with opening windows. It seems obvious, but most office buildings have windows that cannot be opened and this affects the well-being of the individual. Another fundamental theme today always linked to the external view is that of terraces, roofs and patios. In fact, these elements guarantee that in the future the same building can eventually be transformed into a residence or a place of hospitality, which necessarily need to face the outside.

There are several issues on which to place emphasis in terms of the well-being of the individual in the workplace. Among these, that of acoustic comfort, which for years has been overlooked probably because we were not yet in the video calls era. Thus, it was not a noticeable issue yet, or there was simply less sensitivity to the theme. Today, the acoustic design can no longer be conceived as a form of adjustment to existing situations, but it should rather be an integral part of the initial project, as well-being passes by such comforts. Beside the conception of specific areas in which to phone or video call, it is necessary that there is no disturbance between one station and the other, so that everyone is allowed to talk without affecting the whole open space.

Another aspect on which we work is the perception of natural light, sought and pursued from every possible angle, and filtered by curtain systems. The modulation of artificial light is also essential in our view. Beyond the parameters imposed by the regulations, we think about the demands of customers who may prefer different types of light. To this end, in addition to specific integration systems, we have introduced new elements that do not normally belong to the office world, such as floor lamps to illuminate workstations, with maximum user satisfaction.

Regarding less technical aspects, a significant topic is that of the character of the spaces. We think it is fundamental that everyone can choose the space in which to feel most comfortable, both globally but also on the specific day. Considering that, as mentioned, we are moving towards a setting where we have open workstations in all offices, we like to work on the fact that, even within the same floor, there may be different situations. In this way everyone can find the one that makes him feel content during the working life in that company within that office or on a particular moment of the day.

Another issue on which we are occupied is that the office building can no longer be an exclusively private building. Beyond the use, which can be single-tenant or multi-tenant, it is essential to open up to a relationship with the city. This has two sides. One is related to the office building of NTT Data in Milan, a traditional building, with no views on the city and without any type of internal mixed function. However, the urban metaphor was taken as a starting point for imagining the interior spaces. Each of the twelve floors is different in layout, design and character. The architectural imaginaries that define each section derive from spaces of the metropolis. There are arcades, large staircases, fountains and small squares typical of the Mediterranean cities.

With this project we focused for the first time on the topic of relationships. When we started to work on this theme we asked ourselves what could be the place par excellence of relationships and we identified in the city the place we were looking for. The evolution of things takes place in cities precisely because there are countless opportunities for networking, sometimes prearranged, sometimes unplanned.

On the other side, in terms of innovation, we think there may be a hybridization of functions right between the office and the public space of the city. For example, in a project we are working on in Cosenza, in southern Italy, we are designing a public crossing that passes through the building and connects a square with the highest part of the city. This is significant for us to make the city live in the building and the building live in the city. This also opens up the possibility of setting up public functions within a construction of private character.

The new office projects we are working on are the Headquarters of NTT Data in Rome, of which some floors are already finished, while others are still under construction. We are then working on the already mentioned office building in Cosenza, a completely new structure, of about 13,000 square meters. There is also another project we are working on in southern Italy, specifically in Bari. It is a conversion of an industrial building that has undergone several changes over the years. The structure of the building is quite peculiar, as it seems that of a church with three naves, endowed with beautiful trusses, and grafted onto the main tower that looks like an evaporation chimney.