Excerpt: Locatelli Partners: Dialogues by Rizzoli International Publications

Church of San Paolo Converso Locatelli Partners Office Milan, 2014

It wasn’t that the studio went looking for the Church but rather the Church that came to the studio. Even for those used to seeing spaces and not being afraid of them, a church is often a little disconcerting, so we had to find the key to transforming a place of spirituality into a place of creativity where we could design and meet others. What’s the best way to enter into a dialogue with a space crammed full of art and history without being overwhelmed? Only simple and essential elements could coexist with the pre-existing wealth of the interior so a four storey structure in black iron was built, a completely separate contemporary space that inhabits the richly frescoed church and whose height and transparencies produce the same sense of astonishment that one feels when seeing a breath taking landscape. The churchyard outside is open to the public, there is an internal area for the faithful and a section behind the altar reserved for the nuns in the adjacent cloistered convent. A lunette on the inside wall allowed the nuns to carry out their worship while allowing the faithful to hear their chants and music thanks to acoustics that are still perfect.

A Wi-Fi hot spot was created in the churchyard where people can meet, have lunch and relax. The space for the faithful has been dedicated to art and the remaining section used for work. The spaces have not been divided but are still communicating, as originally intended. The lunette above the altar looks down at a large meeting room that floats between the two spaces. The hall of the faithful is now a space from which to admire the work of different artists and where exhibitions and installations are hosted. Each artist rereads the space by changing it profoundly – it has been a tennis court, doubled in size through an installation of mirrors and once became the home of a PVC bubble adhering to the walls. Alongside the visual arts there have been outbursts of other languages such as music and singing. The church has already been home to musical events and during its many lives it has also been a recording studio where Mina and Maria Callas have sung and as with art and music, the space changes again and again.

â&#x2020;&#x2018; Omnit rem et volo voluptis ate nime rem dolorpore nimi, ipsae nihil ium harcias orum is cerunumum confiri ssenihicaut pris, und otarid etraesil ublin Itaberopone.

Clorofilla Nursery School Milan, 2012

After parents and school, this space can be considered as a third educator. It is something that the children experience every day at the Clorofilla nursery school, an institution that carries on the important Reggio Children educational project aimed at developing the expressive nature of little boys and girls and encouraging their rights and potential. The nursery school is inside the courtyard of a nineteenth century house which was closed off at the beginning of the following century through the addition of a domed reinforced concrete structure intended to give double height to the central space. The building was originally used as a hospital, then it became a theatre and finally a cinema. The aim of the project was to keep the original skeleton but remove the cupola, leaving the arches as a large cloister all around the nursery. On the ground floor leading from the entrance is a large covered square, a place for meeting and exchanging which is overlooked by the glazed classrooms. The central core is a closed garden surrounded by windows in which a large

camphor tree is growing – a metaphor of regenerating lifeblood – which reaches up to the upper floor terrace. Around the square are the different sections of the school as well as the kitchen, the swimming pool and the offices. On the first floor are the gym and the canteen, with large windows overlooking the hanging garden. The garden is home to fruit trees, aromatic plants and a large vegetable plot where children experiment with the growth, transformation and care of plants on a daily basis. The interior is all white with concrete floors and windows with white painted metal frames and transparent glass. White is dominant so as not to interfere with the children’s colourful creations and their materials. All the classrooms have a fully equipped bathroom and a mezzanine area for naps. As often happens in the studio's projects, the furniture was created on an ad-hoc basis; in this case, the multipurpose wooden chairs were made in Vietnam and the tables from curved and painted metal tubes. All the materials used are natural and untreated.

â&#x2020;? Qium harcias orum is cerunumum confiri ssenihicaut pris, und otar.

â&#x2020;&#x2019; Qium harcias orum is cerunumum confiri ssenihicaut pris, und otar.

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Nilufar Depot Milan, 2015

The great theatre of historical and contemporary design set up in a doll’s house. Nina Yashar’s Nilufar Depot is an exhibition space of 1,500 square metres on three floors in one of Milan’s former industrial areas. The space is home to a significant collection of design pieces and was inaugurated during the 2015 Salone del Mobile. The idea was to create a large container divided into rooms in order to best display the furniture and accessories and to do this an exposed metal frame was designed, as if it were the skeleton of three different houses with no front wall, all overlooking a communal square. To enter you go down three steps, since the floor has been lowered as the result of an excavation intervention in order to achieve the maximum in height. From the central area or square, which is both the entrance and the exhibition space, there is a view of the three “buildings”,

each with three floors and spacious rooms. These all look like stages in an Italian theatre, each one a backdrop against which to display products with constantly changing inspirations and suggestions. The light comes from both above and the opposite wall. The houses are all built with exposed beams. The two sides are cubes while the one at the rear exploits the existence of a pre-existing caveau and is deeper. The central house is like three lofts stacked one on top on another. Inside the floors are concrete and the stairs are iron. The idea of the setting as a vast theatre was the ideal solution for a visionary gallery intended for those who love design not only as a product but as an inspiration for an artistic quest that springs from the seductive nature of its combinations.

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Penthouse Milan, 2003

Light and views for an intense and contemplative space The flying villa, as friends call it, is an attic transformed into a loft suspended in the air. A large rectangle of 103 square metres with a glass roof on the seventh and top floor of a building in the centre of Milan. The space is divided into two rectangles, one flooded with light and destined for daytime use and one for the night with utility rooms and the more intimate and welcoming darker spaces. A 30 square metre terrace is located on the upper level with access from the living room. To build this glass house on top of a building from the 1950s, it was necessary to reinforce the condominium with steel beams, remove the old roof and build an iron cage that was modified following the course of the sun and the panoramas to be framed. Light and views were the criteria that drove the design. The materials for the interiors derive from structural choices: cement on the floor that reinforces the ceiling, exposed beams and flexible internal partitions.

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The daytime area, comprising living room, dining room and kitchen, has a fourth glass wall whose upper half can be opened and which can become a terrace over the city. The roof of this room is half glass, the other half is an area which can be walked on and used as a solarium, a top floor. The seven-metre-long design kitchen is made from a single piece of industrial steel. A long bookcase filters the sleeping area with smaller rooms concealed behind sliding panels. The furniture includes sofas by Kill, P40 armchairs by Osvaldo Borsani, a Le Corbusier table from the convent at La Tourette and a dining table with chairs by Finn Juhl. There is a 18th Century Viennese wall clock, the bed has been designed to match the height of the windowsill and the smaller window near the bed has a particular splay that allows light to reach the bed even at night, like the windows in the church of Notre-Damedu-Haut in Ronchamp by Le Corbusier. An intense space to live, full of light that permits no distractions and enhances every detail.

Qium harcias orum is cerunumum confiri ssenihicaut pris, und otar.

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