29.12.2008
Showroom Smeg
The design for the new SMEG showrooms in Reggio Emilia is both essential and rigorous in its overall conception but is still successful in the creation of a welcoming atmosphere for its visitors.
The sales outlet is SMEG’s first shop and showroom in the city – representing an important showcase for this substantial player in electrical and domestic appliances retailing in its own territory.
The design is directly inspired by the guidelines laid down as part of the Group’s commercial philosophy, seeking to draw on the image of «technology as furnishing» and not just acting as its container. This is SMEG’s guiding principle deriving from the combination of reliable high technology always combined with a refined aesthetic.
The new Showroom contains a vast selection of SMEG products, a space which has been specially designed to enhance the electrical appliances on show to the maximum while at the same time maintaining an identity and architectural presence of its own.
The floor-space available for the sales area is 750 square metres arranged in an open layout in industrial-type premises positioned on a main road giving access to the centre of the northern zone of the town.
The design takes its cue from the dynamism of this location, seeking to bring elegance and lightness to what is by any standards, a substantial structure, by concentration on the exterior walls. The design of the main façade is based on a brise soleil conception with a complex horizontal development using longitudinal steel beams and densely worked meshing also made of steel.
The finished work is best characterised by the carefully thought out and highly measured interaction of the individual elements providing an impression of strength and control both in the premises’ external design and in the spaciousness of its interior, demonstrating a solidity unaffected by the whims of fashion.