Insight, listening and creativity

INSIGHT, LISTENING AND CREATIVITY

by Samuela Urbini

Lorenzo Berselli initiates the creative process by listening carefully to his client’s requirements. Founder of the Triestebased studio, counts periods spent in the prestigious studios of Alberto Mancini and Luca Dini in his resume. His ideas are always first expressed in freehand drawings, and this was also true for the latest of his creations, the Tuxedo 54

Born and brought up in Bologna, Lorenzo Berselli, has designed many yachts for Overmarine Yachts, like the Mangusta Oceano 42 and 54 GranSport, and the S10 for Azimut. Opposite page, the sketches made for the Tuxedo 54

Left, the Tuxedo 54 under way, showing off its sculptural external lines. Opposite page, top, the aft section of the Tuxedo Yachting House’s entirely custom-built model, the location of the tender garage. In the cockpit, next to a dinette with table for ten guests, there is a sunpad area that can shaded by an electrically-operated bimini (visible in the photo below, right). Also visible, the forward sunpad area, which can be shaded with removable canopies

The client always comes first. Whether it’s a yard or an individual owner, it’s their requirements that Lorenzo Berselli carefully takes note of before setting out on the creative process that will transform this input into a design that reflects these specifications. Born and brought up in Bologna, he nurtured his passion for the sea during family holidays spent on board a yacht based in Trieste harbour. After studying design at the IED in Turin, in 2012 he began his first work experience at the Alberto Mancini studio when it was in Trieste. During this time Berselli lived on board the family yacht – what better way to immerse himself in the industry that was to become his profession? This internship eventually extended into a seven-year stay at the studio, a period that saw the development of projects like the Mangusta Oceano 42 and the 54 GranSport, both for the Overmarine yard, and the Azimut S10. He then moved on to the Luca Dini studio in Florence. This office also handles architectural design, enabling the young man to broaden his professional horizons. In 2021 he decided to open his own studio called Agon, a Greek word describing intellectual and creative competition. “Our vision involves approaching every project as if it’s a design challenge to create a better product for the owner, in line with his or her input and

the build limitations, while offering the public a product that satisfies us and represents us”, says Berselli. Trieste was once the location of choice. “I decided to open my studio because I wanted a new stimulus, a new source of satisfaction”. It was here that the Tuxedo 54 came into being, a soon-to-launched full custom yacht 16.70 metres in length. “We developed the project in 2022. Following the sale of the first unit it underwent a natural evolution, shaping it to fit the owner’s desires”, says Berselli. This sleek yacht “was originally entirely open with just a hard top. The client, though, wanted a cabin with dinette and enclosed helm station. Then he asked for greater contact with the exterior, and not just visual, so we added features like a double skylight and electrically-operated side windows”. The owner also asked for just two cabins (apart from the crew cabin), with the owner’s cabin forward and the guest cabin aft. As a result they’re both very spacious. This bespoke configuration is also made possible by the aluminium construction – unusual for a yacht of this size – and the philosophy of the Tuxedo Yachting House brand, founded in 2020 but able to draw on the experience of Aldo Ceccarelli, the father of the current owner, president of Confindustria Nautica for many years and yacht builder since 1963.

The yard can fulfil many of its clients requests, offering them megayacht-style comfort condensed into a much more compact package.

For Berselli the initial phase is always the work of human hands in a context of creative freedom, without thinking too much about proportions, drawing captivating lines like the profile of the Tuxedo 54, with almost sculptural sections that can be seen in the sketches of this model. These lines are almost immediately transformed into real proportions using 2D or 3D software, developing a general plan and culminating in a 3D version of the yacht, roughed out at first and then transformed into a definitive rendering. “I’m more focussed on exteriors, but on yachts of these dimensions the interiors and exteriors are closely linked, so these aspects of the project develop hand in hand”.

The interiors of the Tuxedo 54 are laid out in a rational plan, as the owner specified, with sand coloured oak floors and slightly darker wood on the walls. From left, anti-clockwise, the helm station with dinette on the main deck, the spacious owner’s cabin on the forward lower deck filled with natural light at the sides and through a skylight in the centre, the guest bathroom and lastly the guest cabin located aft