AMAA Architecture's Office Set Within an Old Factory in Italy

Taking a rather meta approach, AMAA Architecture have built their own workspace within a workspace, setting up an office within a former factory in the industrial town of Arzignano, Italy. The architects were inspired by what they perceive to be the three key phases of an architectural project: theory – encompassing model making, references and inspiration; order – whereby inspiration is transformed into a tangible, conceptually layered design; and outcome – the physical construction on site.

The result is a delicate, contemporary two-storey office that manages to at once distinguish itself from and blend seamlessly with the essentially untouched bones of the previous warehouse. Taking the form of a modernist box beneath the tall vaulted factory ceiling, the office comprises a thin steel frame, metal roof, and concrete slabs. Full height glass panels are used as both interior and exterior façades, creating a sense of openness and light despite the fact that the office is essentially a building within a building.

Stairs are carved out of blocks of concrete and travertine, leading from one storey to the next and to a discreet side passage with kitchen amenities set within a timber counter. The raw concrete bathroom walls appear almost inappropriately grungy, though offset by sleek black metal tapware, smooth timber panels and a recessed circular skylight.

In fact, the entire project borders on inappropriate in the best kind of way, as if the architecture firm has set up camp in an abandoned warehouse. The fact that the intricacy of the structure reveals itself on closer inspection, upon realizing there are glass walls amongst the intentionally rusted metal framework and the concrete render is intentionally patchy and raw, that the brilliance of the design sets in.

In creating a space that most directly encompasses their approach to architecture and design, AMAA have simultaneously built themselves an office to be envied.