THE ENERGY COMPANY’S HEADQUARTER

The Context

The goal of the workshop organized by Politecnico di Torino was to merge architecture and engineering students in the work on the project of the real energetic company’s headquarters. The projected area is located in Alba, a small but historical town in the Piedmont region of Italy. Alba is famous for two things: the first Nutella factory and the beautiful hills landscape under UNESCO protection. At that moment the EGEA company had its headquarters in Alba, but it was going to expand and needed the renovation of its main office building. The headquarters’ land plot hosted several buildings: a former power station, an old warehouse, and a new office building.

The Design

The objective of the project suggested by our team reflected our slogan: Sustainability through renovation. Following that goal, all existing buildings were preserved and reused. Removing all fences and arranging the public space inside with a restaurant, park, and library aimed to attract more people to the territory and return this land plot to the town community. This step should present the EGEA as an open and customer-oriented company. The heart of the project has to become the client-service hall which was placed in the refurbishment building of the warehouse: this open hall which hosts meeting places, a library, and the EGEA museum could become the point of the attraction.

Office Layout

When planning the office, great attention was paid to common areas such as meeting, resting, and dining zones to stimulate employees to communicate and share their ideas. The two different layouts of the 2nd and the 3rd floor represent the different approaches to arranging inside the workspace: the orthogonal and the irregular. The second floor is a rethought traditional open-space office. However, to correct the main disadvantage of this office type noisiness, every desk was isolated by the 1.5m high board from 3 sides. The space between the groups of the tables was occupied by the transparent meeting rooms or lounge zones. In contrast, the third floor was focused to create more private space. It consists of transparent rooms placed in irregular order. Every room hosts desks for 4-7 workers, or manager room, or a meeting room. Between the glass rooms, there are rest zones.