Toolbox is a project based on the transformation of 3 floors of an office building (about 4,500 square meters) which was conceived to respond to the transformation of the city. Traditionally, Torino’s professional structure was largely related to an industrial setup (FIAT cars, Pinifarina, etc...). Nowadays Torino’s professional reality is increasingly represented by freelance workers.

The intervention, designed by Caterina Tiazzoldi, focuses mainly on the ground floor. It is conceived to create a functional and architectural rehabilitation of the entire complex. Toolbox has been conceived as a professional incubator. Its design has been created for a new generation of professionals (architects, web designers, artists, lawyers, accountants and independent contractors). Derived from an hybridation of traditional European working spaces (organized in small offices) and the American open space model, Toolbox has been conceived as an attempt to invent a new approach to work.

This office project was designed for a shopping center developer. The initial concept was to create very functional and contemporary headquarters. The design intention was to build, through the language and the atmosphere, an architecture completely aside from the traditional / institutional one, based on the premise of the workplace as a second home where workers spent most of our time.

Photographs by Jaime Navarro

A mix of natural materials such as marble and wood, in contrast with colored tempered glass, stainless steel and iron, created balanced color and textures compositions and at the same time a combination between modern design and a warm ambiance.

355 Eleventh is a LEED-NC Gold adaptive reuse of a historic (and previously derelict) turn-of-the-century industrial building. The building's original timber frame structure was retained and seismically upgraded. Both a new exterior envelope and new interior were provided to serve the building's current role as a multi-tenant workspace. The building has recently been selected as one of the AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects.

Middlefart is a small Danish town on the island of Fyn. Middelfart Savings Bank had high ambitions for its recently inaugurated head office. The building needed to ensure a perfect environment for the employees, while positively stressing demands for high architectural quality in the future development along the neighbouring harbour front.

3XN’s design is characterized by a large roof that covers all functions in the building. The roof is a large elegant wooden structure with 83 prism like skylights.

The openings bring in abundant amounts of daylight and allow for direct view of the sea from all places in the building, up and down. In this way, the light and friendly atmosphere sought for by the bank is achieved. The roof is designed to frame a perfect view towards the Lillebælt waters as well with a functional purpose of shading from direct sunlight.

The new office of San Paolo Bank in Baia Mare is located on the Unirii Boulevard, line connecting the new center with the south entrance of the city and featuring newly built edifices, as well as buildings currently under construction.


The area has no unitary structure due to the lack of an existing consistent building body, on one hand and, on the other hand due to the failure to observe unitary regulations for the already built constructions.

Photographs: Andrei Margulescu

Employees of Facebook recently moved to a new headquarters that facilitates interaction and connection, reflecting the company’s mission as a social networking website provider. Formerly a laboratory facility for high-tech manufacturer Agilent Technologies, the new Facebook headquarters is a 150,000-square-foot structure at Palo Alto’s Stanford Research Park brings together more than 700 employees originally scattered throughout 10 locations in and around downtown Palo Alto.

The design of the space relied heavily on input from the users, appropriate for a flatly structured company that weights every employee’s opinion equally. O+A designers interviewed employees about what they wanted from their new Facebook headquarters. The Facebook platform was used to conduct company-wide polls about design decisions, post construction photos and updates, and keep everyone informed of the thought process behind the project. An advisory board of employees from every department collaborated with the design team on the design process, from space planning to finishes to final move coordination.

Earlier this month we reported the winners of the World Architecture Festival Awards that happened in Barcelona. These awards according to Paul Finch, WAF Program Director: “…give architects the opportunity to showcase some of their most creative designs to an international audience. I hope we see many of these iconic buildings of tomorrow entered into the completed building categories at WAF Awards in years to come. Yet again we received a huge response to these fiercely contested WAF Awards, with 272 projects short-listed from 67 different countries. The geographical range and quality of this year’s designs were exceptionally high. ”

We are now shedding some light on Statoil Hydro Office, Norway, designed by a-lab, Norway, the winning project in the category Future Project of the Year – Commercial.

A small but beautiful interior space by Brazilian Architect Arthur Casas, where the concrete and the steel are left visible to integrate with finishing material like wood and glass.

As Casa explains: “In this little project, one can see the explicit inspiration of Sao Paulo architecture from the 1960s and 70s.