Torino (TO), Italia

Toolbox Coworking Torino

Torino Office Lab and co-working “In a complex-structured city in which the interactions among parts intensify; in which the number of decision-makers and cultural scenarios overlap, interconnect and sometimes collide; in which the temporal dimensions of the citizens are dissimilar; in which local and global, physical and virtual dimensions co-exist, it is necessary to identify new design tools and new urban organism which could respond to design complexity”. Caterina Tiazzoldi 2001

Tridimensional view

“In Turin, Italy, there is a new box, Toolbox, a large container of tools and ways to use them.” The Toolbox project has transformed an office center of about 4,500 square meters, the result of a previous restructuring of the Seventies of an industrial building near the railway, into a new workspace. The idea behind the intervention is to respond to Torino business reality changes. Torino professional life result to be less and less tied to corporate companies and closed offices, and increasingly characterized by the presence of free lance working independently.

The intervention, which focuses mainly on the ground floor, is designed to create a functional and architectural rehabilitation of the entire complex. Toolbox is conceived as a professional incubator. Its design has been though for a new generation of professionals (architects, web designers, artists, lawyers, accountants, professionals and independent contractors). Derived from an hybridation between traditional European working spaces (organized in small offices) and the American model of open space, Toolbox has been conceived to invent a new approach to work. The idea leading the architectural project was to understand how Toolbox design could join the idea of plurality within a coherent design. At present time you can work remotely from anywhere, using a laptop and a wi-fi, why should we need a workspace? What are you looking for from your office? After a stage in which home working appeared as a real alternative to traditional working space, people rediscovered the need for spaces dedicated to it. These are needed for three reasons: need for sociability, professional prestige in front of others, but mostly of themselves, distinguish between relaxed and professional environment.How should be the space for the new generation of Italian professionals? The project was developed modulating privacy and sociability levels, work and leisure gradients, formality and informality range.

1. Plurality and coherence One of the earliest problem was to reconcile the plurality of users and requests to the coherence of the architectural concept. Who where the people to address the project? How was it possible to create a rational structure with a multitude of users, needs, expectations and ways of working? How to balance diversity and coherence? Especially how to invent a sustainable plurality? Diversity and variety are considered values of the project concept. For this in reason walls in the reception area were made with cubes of variable sizes on which are shown the positions of the different services offered by the property. The first message to convey to visitors was a whole and coherent set obtained by adding together different elements. The wall has been optained by a parametric device having the capacity to redesign several configuration of the same wall. Also this aspect was conceived to describe the project as a hole that can be reconfigured in accord with users needs.

From a functional standpoint the intervention has been the transformation of a traditional office space (with enclosed spaces) in vast open space of 44 individual workstations alternated with a set of volumes including meeting rooms, printer rooms , informal meeting spaces. The intervention wanted to keep as much intact and visible as possible the original concrete structure. The main span of the industrial building was divided lengthwise by inserting a series of filter volumes used as technical rooms and lockers to store equipment. The side facing the windows has been used for the 44 workstations of the co-working. On the opposite side , with no window or openings, has been created a corridor overlooked by volumes and boxes containing the common services of the center “tools for working”(meeting rooms, printers area, bathrooms, mailboxes, patio, kitchen).

In a secondary sleeve, perpendicular to the first, has been developed a lounge, bar and relaxation area. Again the double concrete beams has been left exposed and the service spaces (the bar) have been enclosed in boxes included in the industry volume.

Desk

Uniformity and variation In contrast to the homogeneity of the general concept, that allows to offer uniformity and consistency to the area, changes and punctual transformation were made to the initial design rule that allowed to value the idea of multiplicity. Volumetrically identical elements, such as boxes overlooking the corridor, have been made recognizable one among the others by the declination of the materials used (using different types of cork, glazes, etc…). This intervention has also helped to improve the terminal and acoustic insulation of the boxes and of the whole space. From the spatial point of view the objective was to convey the impression of a harmonious coexistence of different worlds and cultural references. The principle of variation and transformation of the same element was also pursued inside the spaces, differentiating the color of natural rubber floors of meeting rooms or varying the levels of transparency and the diameters of the bubbles that form the external texture of the cube-bar . The idea of gradation and variation is the characteristic featured in the building because it serves to distinguish the different gradients of socialization, privacy, relax or work of the different settings. Perceptive and functional modulations evolve at the same time within the intervention.

Desk

Lighting: The most striking characteristic of an industrial building, is the way the light is distributed in the space; it is thin, rarefied almost vaporized by the large openings. The goal of the project was to preserve this feeling of “suspension” by creating a rhythm of volumes based on the distribution of the windows. The filter boxes dividing the building into two spaces allow having a light variation between co-working, hallways and service areas. Natural light comes directly in the co-working spaces, but penetrates in the corridors and then falls on the meeting rooms, highlighting the gap between these boxes and the industrial truss. In the central span the volumes of technical spaces and of filter boxes along the blind side are aligned in order to organize the structure with a rhythm defined by the cut of natural light crossing the space. The succession of volumes, the alignment of the above wires and the variety of materials transformed the hall into a kind of urban landscape, a promenade, overlooked by the boxes as if they were buildings. Artificial light, fully realized with low energy lights, mixes with the natural balancing the weight and distribution. In the evening, in the corridor, a series of cuts of neon light, facing from bottom right and top left, scans the rhythm of space. The small patio area, where there are the bamboo, is a well of light that illuminates the kitchen space.

Lobby area

Formal informal? What is the right level of severity, formality, solemnity to give to a workspace designed for independent workers who do not represent a firm or a company? What is the best work setting? What is the best environment to stimulate their professional production? In which environment we are and we feel professionals? What kind of space is our better representation? The project Toolbox has been conceived with different gradients of privacy, different settings and environments. Different working area with different gradient of intensity. In effect in the recent decade almost every professional appreciated some of the positive aspects of working at home. The possibility to perform repetitive tasks on a couch with the computer on the knees, leafing through a document on an armchair, etc … Some of the homework habits naturally became part of our working gesture. For this reason the project developed various kind of settings and different gradients of intensity in the mode of approaching work. The spaces and their language reflect this concept, that is strict, almost austere for the locations in the co-working area, bright and colorful for the sofas and micro-meeting rooms area where work and meetings are conducted in a more relaxed mode . In this way everyone can follow his particular inclinations or their variation during the workday.