Lombardini22 WARMING UP Sarca! Restyling of Centro Sarca

The exhibition “Gli Spazi del Retail Contemporaneo” (Contemporary Retail Spaces) at SpazioFMG, the Iris Ceramica and FMG Fabbrica Marmi e Graniti brands’ exhibition gallery, is over, but we continue to focus on big shopping centres by taking a closer look at one of the projects featured in the exhibition: the restyling of Centro Sarca in Sesto San Giovanni (MI) by Lombardin22.

Sustainability, food and the environment, the themes addressed in Expo 2015, inspired the shopping mall restyling project. Lombardini22 (L22) renovated the exterior of the shopping centre and gave it its iconic new façade, redesigning the interior with attentive remodulation of the retail spaces. New colours, shapes, lights and materials are the elements L22 used in its profound structural, architectural and commercial renewal of the shopping centre to offer users a joyful, vital experience. The new façade, the first thing visitors to the centre see, is a skin overlaying the structure, consisting of colourful vertical strips in which different degrees of density or rarefaction rhythmically modulate the façade at different times of day. The lights incorporated into some of these strips make the shopping centre a clearly visible lantern in the night. Inside, the architects reorganised the system of galleries and plazas to ensure vertical visibility of different levels and a variation in perceptions along horizontal routes. On the outside the renovation project makes Centro Sarca a public attraction, with greenery featuring autochthonous species and a cycle path connecting with existing bicycle routes. L22’s sustainable choices earned the architects BREEAM environmental certification, based on an important international standard measuring not only environmental sustainability but users’ well-being.

(Agnese Bifulco)

Architectural design and plant engineering: Lombardini22
Brand identity and environmental graphics: CBA
Wayfinding & signage: CBA, Fud brand making factory
Location: Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, Italy
Photos: Dario Tettamanzi

www.lombardini22.com

---

GALLERY