La Passeggiata installation

The large installation, realised on the occasion of the Milan Furniture Show 2015, is intended to be an innovative proposal devoted to design and the technology for planning work spaces.
It is a circular route that continues endlessly through the meandering working environment and places the accent on the importance of also moving around in the office in order to receive fundamental stimuli for the creative process. The layout design, which is intended to suggest four moments in the life of the office, is divided into the following themed areas: Club, Uomini Liberi [Free Men], Agorà and Laboratorio.
The Club is a kind of communication platform where priority is given to socialisation and exchange and the space is pleasantly informal, even if organised in such a way as to favour the various possible working modes. The space may recall the welcoming waiting rooms of hotels or the lounges of airports, where you can also satisfy the desire for a coffee or eating something at the same time.
Uomini Liberi is the working space used for individual and group work, which must be able to encourage the exchange of ideas and skills – at the basis of the creative and production process – but also to contribute to creating a balance between “I” and “We”. Nourishing the creativity of individuals, in fact, is as important as developing the potential of group work and the relational environment plays a fundamental role in both processes. This themed area is characterised by many small architectures, private spaces to be able to meet colleagues, write, study, analyse, make evaluations and work both alone and with others, and people are free to use the workspace according to their own needs.
Agorà is the area mainly used for meetings: conferences, presentations, film projections, exhibitions, displays and special events. A pavilion conceived to allow various types of meetings, within which to exchange points of view, to present your ideas and get to know others’ thoughts, to play your role in the theatre of life, perceiving the importance of community. It may also become a workplace where seats and tables can be organised to work in groups.
Finally, the Laboratorio is where the creative process takes concrete form: documents, presentations and 3D prototypes, images, software and applications all take shape. It is the appointed place for planning, for exploring new tools and instruments, for creating images and documents, where ideas and thoughts become creations and different processes contribute to the consolidation of the community.
Nature plays a key role in the production process; the artificial world in which we live and produce cannot be separated from the natural one. For this reason an “ecosystem” of spaces – a garden with different areas – surrounds the workspace of “La Passeggiata”, enabling the decision as to where and how to carry out your work best to be made. Greenery puts us in connection with nature, allowing us to witness the changing of the seasons, of day and night, and the beauty of the universe that is manifested through its sounds and aromas. As happens in agriculture when the concept of permaculture is applied, the office could also become a space to be left uncultivated with the purpose of making the most fertile seeds germinate; the uncultivated hedges, in the hands of hybridisation and contamination, are as alive and rich as thoughts and imaginings that do not fall directly within any discipline or category of knowledge.
Art too participates in the workspace and is dotted around the route of the installation, contributing to stimulating the senses, to lightening the load of the working day and connecting people. Art stimulates the imagination, but above all it ensures that the working environment is not a sterile space that penalises people’s wellbeing and inhibits their potential. The works of Marcello Chiarenza, architect, sculptor, painter, set designer, author and theatre director – created by assembling hazel branches – enrich the route of “La Passeggiata”, concretely underlining the importance of the role that art can play. The themes of the sculptures are within the symbolic body of the solar year, the elements of nature, the cycle of the seasons, almost recalling the link between people and the nature that surrounds the workspace.