Nomisma's offices are at the fifth and sixth floor of Palazzo Davia Bargellini, one of the most prestigious and best-preserved Bologna senator buildings. The functional program includes the initial shift of two research areas of the company, now located at the first floor.
On the sixth floor there is the great hall covered with wooden trusses, the space more valuable. In this scenographic surroundings are concentrated most of the work stations, offices of the two area heads, two meeting rooms and some service areas and welcoming visitors. The advantage of this place, enhanced by a very accurate previous restoration project, lies in the quality of the space enclosed by wooden roof trusses beautifully preserved, the scale of the whole and the prevalence of natural skilights because of the Superintendence limitations, counterpointed by memorable views over the city roofscape and hills.
The choice of an open space was the response to the quality of the context, to maintain an overall sense of transparency and unity, as well as the desire to build a sense of active research community. The desire to reconcile these objectives with the need for a certain degree of privacy recommended a design for cluster relatively self-gravitating around a central staff services. In fact, each cluster of 4 or 6 workstations guarantees privacy and independence with the positioning of shelves USM acting as light partitioning and Plant designed by Lighting Viabizzuno. Heads Area ensure more privacy, since they provide a system of individual offices with UNIFORM glass walls from which you can perceive the entire space. It was secured separate entrances for guests and employees. The positioning of the area head rooms, eccentric relation to the work environment, allows parallel monitoring of both research and access to guests.
On the fifth floor the space is characterized by the presence of full height truss, whose struts go down to the ground and whose chains are integrated into the structure of the attic. These structures clearly constrain the degrees of freedom in space using and the design of internal layout, despite being spectacular element. The program includes an area functional to secretariat, workstation, an archive and meeting rooms. The presence of the trusses becomes the order element of the proposal, resulting from restriction into opportunities. The units, organized in pairs, are arranged perpendicular to the structures, as well as shelves. This area has become necessary to develop “ad hoc” lighting plant because of the morphology of the ceiling that is not suited to hanging points light, as in the sixth floor because of fire-retardant used paints. It was then chosen to power the lighting system from the floor. In that light, the light fixtures are not suspended, but rather fixed to the trusses in a non-invasive way, studying with Viabizzuno a special item that reinterprets the traditional role of enhancing the structural component.
One exception is the solution adopted in the meeting room, where the lighting solution aligns to secondary shores cover charge, emphasizing the one-way.