After the restyling of the Ariostea offices in 2018, Area-17 revised the company showroom to create an emotional space that arouses curiosity throughout the exhibition. The display is organized as a sequence of surprising moments, and establishes a strong spatial and visual connection with the upper floors. Once again, the design is driven by the brand’s core values: technological innovation and diligent attention to detail.
Those aspects are the fil rouge of a project based on focal points: the first and central one, hosts the latest products in the field of oversized ceramic slabs. The area revolves around a monumental back-lit table, which is the composition’s fulcrum of the whole showroom. Here, ceramic samples are displayed as if they were precious objects, according to the core idea that research and innovation are the beating heart, the essential condition to the company’s very existence.
From here, the visitor’s gaze overlooks a hall with a large, truncated-conic fireplace. The passage way leading to it is accompanied by window-niches that are set up with trends and custom applications expressing the technical and emotional potential of ceramic. The fireplace room is a relaxing environment, made of materials with a natural appeal enhanced by a soft lighting, and ideally connects the building’s floors and functions.
The background music encourages the visitors to take a break before exploring the environments around the fireplace, four conceptual rooms where wide ceramic slabs seem to float in the empty space while a linear light dematerializes their outlines. At the opposite side of the showroom, a bar that is designed in marble-effect ceramic materials will open in the near future, materic and emotional counterpoint to the fireplace room.
The renovation interests also other spaces than the headquarters. On the occasion of Cersaie 2019, the area will feature a temporary exhibition of a kitchen meant to be an architecture rather than a set of furniture pieces, something that generates a new space instead of furnishing an existing one. The installation is fully implemented with oversized ceramic slabs.
Area-17