Hasta La Ideas

Israeli architects Pitsou Kedem have completed a showroom for furniture brand B&B Italia inside an industrial warehouse by the harbour in Tel Aviv.

Silicate panels line the western wall of the 11-metre-high hall, while other interior walls are clad in concrete panels.

A deep-framed entrance leads visitors inside, where a rusted metal staircase climbs up to a narrow mezzanine that bridges the full width of the showroom.

A wall of metal-framed window panels divides the space into two and some of them pivot open as doors.

Furniture on show inside the warehouse currently includes a sofa by designer Patricia Urquiola – find out more about it here and see more stories about B&B Italia here.

The text below is from Pisou Kedem:

The Shell and its Contents – Italia B&B Showroom

The designer breathed new life into an abandoned and dilapidated building in the Tel Aviv harbor area, and created, around one of the finest furniture collections in the world of design, a space that is both powerful and yet restrained at one and the same time.

The 11 meter high structure with a unique façade consisting of a line of pillars that creates a clear and well defined construction grid, was used by the designer as the base for the entire outer shell.

The architect chose to leave in place only the pillars and beams and to remove everything else leaving just a hint of the structures history with the rectangular, silicate western wall, being specially treated to preserve its original look.

In the design for the interior of the building, the architect expresses his own, local interpretation for the display space where there is a continuous space, achieved through light, sight and movement along with the use of industrial materials that correspond with the industrial look of the outer shell.

The aim was to create a display space that was both impressive and powerful but without detracting from the importance of the furniture on display.

The central idea was to create a shell that would stand as an architectural element in its own right whilst still respecting the contents of the structure.

The use of unprocessed materials in their natural and original form (such as concrete panels and rusted iron) succeeded in empowering the industrialized look but also not to overpower of the furniture display.

The outside of the structure was sheathed in industrial, concrete looking panels and, despite the buildings great height; the architect designed a low, metal entrance that emphasizes to all those entering the structure the human relationship and the contrasts that strengthen the power of the space’s height once inside the building itself.

From outside, the façade is almost anonymous and, for the most part, sealed.

Due to the decision not to adorn it with huge signs as is usually the case with other showrooms, but rather to preserve the minimalistic and restrained look from the outside, the company’s logo was positioned on the walls of the entrance “tunnel” thus strengthening the effect of the contents – furniture display.

There is an awareness of the importance of the furniture collection on display and of its designers and of a sincere attempt to follow the so fragile and delicate dividing line, to design both a showroom that is impressive and eternal whilst not imposing the architecture on the contents.

Design: Pitsou Kedem Architects
Design Team: Pitsou Kedem, Irene Goldberg, Raz Melamed

Italian studio LDA.iMdA Architects converted this former warehouse in northern Italy into a design showroom and then concealed it behind gauzy black curtains.

Located in the town of San Miniato, the single-storey building for timber furniture brand Artwood now houses exhibition areas, offices and a reception.

Only the black-framed entrance punctures the dark curtain exterior, as there are no windows.

Inside, chunky timber light-boxes bear down over exhibition stands, while an assortment of different wood finishes covers the walls and floor.

Another showroom we’ve featured in recent months was completed by Zaha Hadid for a bathroom brand – see it here.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

ARTWOOD showroom (LDA.iMdA architects)

An abandoned warehouse and the need of bringing inside a new contemporary world are the reasons for a new reinterpretaion of the unused space.

“Second life” is a philosofical (but not only) reinterpretation that allows the use and the improvement of the neglected buildings inventing their new life, therefore giving them a second chance.

This concept is the starting point for the Artwood exhibition space (wood artistic life), where the product is the protagonist, to be mainly “lived”, rather than sold.

The space is designed as a camping in the wood, which is providing the woodworks meant as e return to the origins claimed by the logo, done in the same circumstance, showing the house shaped by the nature.

The wish to cancel the presence of the generator box, keeping the existing structure, leads to the use of the black as a non-colour for the ceilings and the walls, dematerializing the borders, merging into the dark air of a summer night. The curtain black veil solves in a technological way the architecture functionality as well, by the principle of the maximum performance with the minimum of energy spent, and it is designed as an edge the allows to enjoy a different internal place.

Crossing the only entrance through the voluptuous curtain, you can reach a sensorial parallel world. The space is defined by deformed volumes voluntarily spread around under a starry sky (the starry black sky), whose location allows the user to move within a wide open space.

Along the back wall you can see the backlighted picture of a vivid wood, to feel the natural authencity you can breath in the products.

Artwood is designed as an open space where you can follow the stories of the furnitures, where the container is contained and the structure becomes an exhibitor, inverting the common idea of space/ exhibition, so far.

The wish of making spaces with variable relatiosnhips, creates a different use/ relationship between visitor and exhibition space; you can stop in resting spaces and followunusual and unexpected paths, as well.

Inside every volume, showrooms, offices, reception desk and services are located.
Walking, stopping and living inside this building help to loose the feeling of being in a commercial space, and make the visit as a real experience.

Rotating walls with acid green edges slot together like jigsaw pieces between a London lighting showroom and its window display.

Located at the base of the Centre Point tower, the Atrium showroom was designed by Studio RHE.

Reclaimed railway sleepers step down from the window to a bar at the centre of the store for events.

Lighting products are displayed on the ceiling above this space, mounted onto white geometric shapes with the same glossy green edges.

More lighting products are attached to the walls at the back of the showroom.

Photography is by Bjarte Rettedal.

Here are some more details from Studio RHE:

Atrium

For the last twenty years, ‘Atrium’ has been located in the base of the Centrepoint tower, the iconic building that once held the title of the tallest building in London.

Recently ‘Atrium’ has made a professional move away from modern furniture supply to selling the finest lighting products – a move that needed both explanation and celebration.

This then lead to a design Brief that required an interactive open space, with a central reception area that could very easily be converted into a darkened showroom.

‘Studio RHE’ reacted to the Brief by designing a carefully choreographed intertwined space which utilizes a series of rotating, interlocking, hinged, jig‐sawed wall panels that transform the bright day‐lit space to a darkened showroom with a simple twist.

These rotating walls allow natural light to be played with throughout the day as well as adding an ever changing frontage to the streetscape of St. Giles Circus.

This theatrical transformation will let ‘Atrium’ demonstrate their range of ‘Soft Architecture’ lighting by FLOS. ‘Studio RHE’ has emphasized this by arranging a rich mix of tactile materials from high gloss resin to reclaimed Yara timber sleepers.

This has been done whilst keeping to a simple palette of predominantly a clean white, accentuated by a bright acid green used throughout the edges as a luminous highlight.

Finally an darkened ‘inner sanctum’ meeting space has been created with colour change lighting control wheels and integrally plastered fittings within the walls.

These complete the showroom experience before returning to the beautifully fitted central kinetic bar at the heart of the space.

The design direction is continued through the entire space to the Offices above where desks are arranged along a diagonal show wall with integrated screens and net surfing booths that look out over the double height showroom and plaza.

Design: Studio RHE
RHE Lighting: Atrium, FLOS

Main Contractor: ISM Design Ltd
Resin Flooring: Senso Floors

Click above for larger image

See also:

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