Architect：Giuseppe Tortato

Location：Milano, Metropolitan City of Milan, Italy

Project Year：2020

Category：Offices

The new building compact and elegant, chosen by Sandvik for their new headquarters fits harmoniously into the context of the “Forgiatura”, reprising its colors and finishes, exploiting the orientation of the lot in a completely unpredictable way and thus giving the project its own individual character.

Its angular shapes, enhanced by the string courses and sunshades, amplify the vistas and perspective views.

In addition to the architectural project, Studio Tortato also dealt with the interior design, the “fit out” as they say, and so was able to make the most of the building's characteristics. Each floor welcomes one of the company’s brands, a peculiarity which required the development of specific concepts but which found a common thread in the articulated planimetric development of the offices.

The lot, quite fixed in terms of solar exposure, mainly from the north-east, and the need to build in a way that harmonized with the Forgiatura, presupposed the design of a single, east-facing building with very limited interior organization options.

On the contrary, the use of sunlight and the exploitation of the building’s orientation as a design element made it possible to create a “polymorphic” structure with no fewer than ten sides. This “forced” the conformation of the lot and offered a satisfying experience for those using the workspaces, developed according to the principles of sustainability and wellbeing that put the health and welfare of the individual at the center of the built environment. Seen from above, one can better understand the “forcing” mentioned. The plan is very articulated and recalls the iconic form of a lightning bolt as it is represented on a high voltage warning sign. 

The plan design varies on every floor, with the aim of multiplying the vistas and perspective views on the street side and creating angular patios on the side facing the wall of the Forgiatura. The building develops on pilotis, leaving the ground floor partly open. It also develops around a green space dominated by trees and some climbing plants on the street side and partly occupied by areas containing the reception and some other additional spaces fundamental for Sandvik. 

Among these, Coromant Center is certainly the most unique environment. This is a type of showroom for the enormous machinery produced by the company. These machines are periodically replaced and put into operation “live” on location so that clients have the opportunity to take part in online presentations from around the world via the web. Being able to use this environment was an essential request from the company when it came to building its new headquarters. The ground floor also houses classrooms and a multipurpose room.  

In order to meet the company’s needs, once ground was broken on the construction site, it was necessary to reinforce the foundations and floors where the machinery would be housed, but above all it required the involvement of a specialist, engineer Giovanni Moschioni of the Politecnico di Milano, to mitigate the acoustic and most importantly the vibrational impact of the machinery relative to the offices above and the need to keep the flooring separate. 

The first floor is the largest and is where the Coromant offices are located. These offices are marked by the elegant mix of textile flooring with a minimalist, medium-grey design, white furnishings and glass walls with black trim and hardware. 

The floor, ending against the boundary wall of the Forgiatura’s Meccanica building, should have had a totally blind side instead of a large skylight (which will be mentioned later), while on the street side, the offices overlook a sinuous canopy of hanging green, forming the backdrop for the offices. 

As to the skylight mentioned above, the possibility of not having natural light was resolved by creating a large opening, more than three meters in diameter, bringing  light into the floor and fascinating viewers with its round, even shape that fits between the building’s angular forms.

This skylight also becomes the visual focus for the floors above as well as for the broad terrace with the hanging green space on the first floor, onto which open the offices of Dormer Pramet, furnished according to corporate guidelines in white, black, light gray and orange. The latter color was used in the phone booths and in some walls of the lounge area, creating bar-code like vertical bands from floor to ceiling, in order to add color accents. 

The terrace, created between the wall of the Meccanica building and the new headquarters, is designed as a “pocket” between the two structures, allowing natural light to be captured in the best possible way and bringing it into the work environments. The second floor, dedicated to the offices of Sandvik (the parent company), also overlooks the terrace. The third and last floor is the brightest and utilizes the most glass. This allows a new, evocative overview of the entire campus of the Forgiatura right up to the so-called “Astronave” which stands above the office building. 

Each floor of the building has different characteristics, settings, colors, and spatial organization so that the building is a continuous voyage of discovery for both users and visitors.

A common feature of the first to third floors is the presence of informal open spaces, terraces, and greenery surrounding the work environments. In a period marked by the devastation of the coronavirus, these are especially valid alternatives to unappealing closed spaces.

For the design of the interior work spaces, and especially from the lighting point of view, the principles of Human Centric Lighting, which studies the methods and tools that provide the most correct lighting at any time of day, were an important touchstone.

In fact, the natural variation of color temperature during the day plays a primary role in human life, influencing aspects such as health, psycho-physical state, productivity and mood.

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