A boutique for women, born from the conversation between the owner and architects
This store is for women and its contents came out of conversations and discussions between us and our customer.
March 28, 2023
Here we are!
Now everything is ready.
This afternoon they're delivering the mirrors and then just a quick check of everything here and there.
Cleaning will be done during the week.
At that point the new boutique will be at our disposal for a day for some photographs.
Nowadays the term "shooting" is in fashion, some time ago "photographic reportage" was used instead, which I honestly liked better.
In order not to offend anyone, I simply say that we will photograph the finished shop, so maybe in a few days we will add the photos to our website.
March 25, 2023
What happened to the color?
Remember when we wondered what color we would paint the floor?
Davide thought he was "daring" but without "daring too much"
He had indicated the color by transcribing the word backwards so as not to make it noticeable. We did not want to read it to be intellectually honest.
We made our proposal and shared it with the owner, so we realized we were on the same wavelength, tone-wise.
However, we were more decisive in choosing the color, we wanted to "dare more".
We chose the color from an NCS chart and showed it to Davide.
The owner accepted our proposal, perhaps thinking to himself: "Yes, I'll jump, I trust and I hope it falls well!"
Our color is pistachio green....a bit of a mix, the one Davide chose was sage green.
It's still green and to be honest, the tones weren't that different.
..... I think this 2023 starts off in the name of green.
Today there was the delivery of wood furniture by Gaspare and Alessio, but to support them there were the two Fabio electricians, the good Vito blacksmith and Enzo, who made the microcement floor and plasterboard.
We are almost finished, we are already talking about the fibe cantoete banquet, all together in a place where we can celebrate this new project we have created together.
But still, it takes a few days. You have to fill in the details, you have to clean up and then you have to be able to do the photo reportage, as per our script.
Meanwhile, a series of photos of the "musicians of this symphony"
Enzo (microcement and plasterboard floor layer)
Fabio (fitness engineer) but also does aerobic gymnastics
Gaspare (wood craftsman)
Vito (the blacksmith).....responsible for my white hair
And then there's the other Fabio, also an electrician (when in a couple the first Fabio doesn't dabble in gymnastics)
March 09, 2023
When we hand over a project to its rightful owner and then return the keys to the completed house, we have to deal with a detachment from something that in some way also belongs to us.
That house is also the fruit of our thoughts, of our passion for the profession of architect, of the skill of the craftsmen.
We usually have the keys to the construction site and during the work we enter and exit the work area more or less as we please.
When we make an appointment with the owner at the workplace, we say that we meet at the construction site and we do not use this term completely casually.
Saying construction site in a certain sense legitimizes our ownership, even if in the short term.
From the moment we say to the client, we'll see you at your home, it means that we have realized that the time has come to detach ourselves and go look elsewhere for another space in which we can feel at home.
From that moment we leave that house and hand it over to the new owners hoping that they will take care of it and treat it well.
Most of the time, except in rare cases, we will never set foot in it again and we will never see it again, thus freezing in our minds the memory of something that we would like to never change.
When we design a public place or a commercial space open to the public, we know we can return as many times as we want.
It's like coming to visit an old friend and see how he's doing.
Commercial spaces today more than ever are ephemeral spaces and have a limited duration.
The frequency with which changes occur causes their memory to be frozen in photographs or videos.
Meanwhile, even the construction workers feel at home inside the construction site, so much so that they sand a floor with the ease of those who are relaxing inside their own home.
Then, between a cigarette and a phone call, there is also time to admire some abstract shapes, which capture our attention.
March 04, 2023
We are at a point in the construction site where work seems to have stopped.
Anyone who is unfamiliar with the dynamics of a construction site of this kind would certainly consider the state of the work to be at a standstill if they were to find themselves entering the construction site at this time.
In reality this is the most important phase for me and constitutes a key moment.
It's the moment when there's a lot of adrenaline on the part of the workers, of us architects and of the client.
These days we all find ourselves in a moment of very delicate coordination among workers.
In practice, the construction site and the craftsmen become a synchronous mechanism that provides precise times that must be respected by everyone in order to move towards the end of the works.
Artisans tend to manage their time independently and without interference. In this circumstance, the times must be dictated by us architects who must act as an interface between the artisans themselves.
Everyone works in their own laboratory and we go to visit them to see how their work is progressing, showing each one the ways of connecting their work with that of the others.
In the meantime, while we wait for this construction site to be completed soon, some of the workers are looking up at the sky and some are kneeling in front of the wall, praying that everything will go well.
March 01, 2023
This evening while I was busy checking the lighting project for an apartment we are designing, I received a whatsapp from Fabio, the electrician.
With his usual humor he invited me to pop into the construction site to see the result of their work today.
When I arrived at the place I found a real symphony of lights that seemed to play in harmony.
It is a rather singular coincidence that while I was working on designing the lighting for a house, I was called to see the result of a similar project for a shop.
I want to think that this evening's event is a good omen for the new project.
The tools we have to design artificial light are renderings, IES files and above all experience. To this we add intuition and instinct.
Both satisfied with the result of this evening, we decided to treat ourselves to an aperitif at the usual bar, where we met other friends who joined us. In the meantime, tonight the dangerous curves have become bright curves and we can't wait to ride them listening to good music.
February 25, 2023
Via Torrearsa is located in the heart of the "good living room" of Trapani.
It is one of those streets known by the people of Trapani with the name "a Loggia".
When I was in high school, this street, together with the transversal Corso Vittorio Emanuele, were very popular with the people of Trapani, especially on Saturday afternoons, when people would walk up and down these streets.
At that time it was also considered the shopping street, where the most renowned clothing and accessories shops in the city were located.
In the 90s the historic center began to empty of residents and even the shops began to close to move their windows along Via Fardella.
The arrival of the America's Cup in 2005 brought the historic center back into the spotlight and the relaunch of the airport and the arrival of Ryanair have finally given a new role to this part of the city, which has become a heap of B&Bs and restaurants. In recent years, two well-known entrepreneurs in the clothing sector have invested
Along the axis of via torrearsa, opening two important shops.
Even Davide, smaller than them, but no less determined, is courageously trying to open his second store in the historic center, and he is doing it with the passion of someone who believes in his work.
While many of his colleagues still migrate to the nearby Via Fardella, he believes in this enterprise and in the deseasonalization of the sales period.
Now they say they will build a new port, big, beautiful and above all able to bring cruise ships, lots of tourists. Many of us hope it will also be a nice place to live for the entire community, for the moment we can't see anything, absolutely nothing......total fog.
However, we are starting to glimpse something at the construction site!
February 16, 2023
We had the summit this evening.
The call promptly arrived at the same time in the afternoon, but this time from the carpenter.
No big deal. His lab is close to the studio and the blacksmith also joined us, it was like killing two birds with one stone. At that point we all went to see.
We all gathered around a jig, a sample of a piece we had designed.
A 1:1 scale curved birch section.
It looked like a piece of a musical instrument under construction.
After days of construction, dust and plasterboard, it was nice to see the embryo of what today we can only see on our computers... and I'm starting to see a bit of color.
February 5, 2023
Today the construction site continued its activities even though it was Saturday.
Enzo and Vito worked the soft plasterboard panels, shaping them into the rigid material of the iron sheets.
It was possible to appreciate this poetic vision of the sheet metal and the vertical metal uprights until Saturday morning. Just enough time for a shot that portrays a photographic composition. By the end of the morning the verticals were no longer visible, as they were hidden by the plasterboard that now forms the backdrop to the sheet metal "S".
A few minutes later the owner came to visit us at the construction site, with whom we talked about the color of the floor, without deciding which one. A chat in which we said everything and nothing...... do you want to listen to it...?
February 15, 2023
When I started doing this job (22 years ago now) everything was much more complicated and slow in terms of communication.
Of course, we were already in the era of computers and the internet, the software we used to draw already existed and we didn't have to spend hours on the drawing board "polishing" drawings, luckily (I experienced that phase at university). Even though we were at the dawn of the technological era, the means were still rudimentary. I still consider myself lucky, because my laziness towards drawing with set squares, ink pens and sheets of tracing paper, gave me the push to learn to use a 3D cad software, as a work tool.
But I remember well that when you had to give instructions to the construction site you always had to have printed sheets to give to the foreman or the craftsmen and so when you had to discuss something, we both had to have the paper in front of us, or I had to be in front of the computer and check what the drawings said to give answers to the construction site and in any case you had to go to the construction site continuously.
Today, various real-time communication tools help us. And that's how the most popular one is WhatsApp, where we all create groups to talk to other people at the same time.
By virtue of this, Gaspare sends me a voice message and then a CAD drawing, asking me if it's okay for me. I reply that something doesn't convince me about the measurements and that we need to rework them.
In the meantime he sends me a sample of a piece of work (bent wood) and so I can see that too without leaving the studio.
To interrupt the idyll of this communication, comfortably seated in an armchair, comes a request from him:
I need you to come to the lab to choose the wood panels and establish the gloss of the paint!
Holy shit! It was so nice in the studio and everything was working. Now I have to get back in the car, drive in traffic, find a parking spot to get to him and then do the same thing to get back.
Jokes aside, I realize that technology helps us a lot, it simplifies things, it allows us to save time (which in my case I reuse not to do many other things, but to rest more ;)) but it often distances us from human relationships.
But then there are other people on the job site who use this kind of digital communication according to their own rhythms and habits. Take the blacksmith for example.....
he still has a visceral love for human contact. It is for concrete things, which require presence in the workshop, amidst the sawdust, the smell of welding.
It is there that he invites me to go and see for myself if a calendering or a bending is coming as planned. Then in the late afternoon another idyll is interrupted. The hope of ending the afternoon in front of the PC with the music on waiting for a photo on WhatsApp that would show me the work done is shattered in front of the WhatsApp message that reads: architect, come to the workshop so I can show you what I'm doing? So you can let me know if it's coming out well and if I can proceed!
More than a request, it's a rhetorical question, so I'll turn everything off and go check it out.
I arrive at the shop and find a lot of work done. It seems well done (I had no doubts) so I say: Nice, it's coming out well. But when are you delivering everything?
The answer is always the same: between a scratch on the head and a facial grimace that I have known for about 15 years, I hear the following response:
I think I'll finish everything in about ten days!
and I think.......
February 11, 2023
Dangerous curves
I often stop to think that we architects are inclined to design straight lines, horizontal and above all vertical.
We are practically inexorably victims of the force of gravity which leads us to follow the downward direction of the forces.
This then leads us to fall into the routine of sharp edges or even right angles.
The possibility of designing a commercial space made us reflect on the concept of lightness, as a contrast to the gravity exerted on vertical lines. The introduction of "curves", sometimes dangerous, here represented the stratagem to move lightly within a space with a floating appearance.
Having then contrasted the hardness and specificity of a material such as iron, served to give character to the curved lines themselves.
We have therefore obtained a result that is satisfactory for us, that of transforming the lines into curves. In the same way we have managed to transform the surfaces into thread-like elements......as we will see later.
February 2, 2023
The construction site started a few days ago. As usual we are dealing with craftsmen we have known for years and with whom we have built houses, villas and shops.
It almost feels like playing a match with a close-knit team
The atmosphere is informal, each of us knows what to expect from the others, we know each other's strengths and how much we can count on our teammates.
If you think about it, given the noise that sometimes occurs on the construction site, it seems like you're dealing with a group of musicians tuning their instruments for a concert.
They prepare for the curtain to rise to let their symphony be heard and to let those who will enter be heard.
On our side, we try to direct them to avoid mistakes and make sure they don't go out of time.
Someone is late and needs to be called back, others would like to run, but it is not possible. You have to move with a coordinated rhythm.
Davide often comes to visit us, early in the morning.
He comes to listen to some "music" and every now and then he even suggests some scores to us.
So we look at each other and suggest we talk about it at the bar over a coffee and a croissant, then we promptly return to tuning the instruments and doing the rehearsals.
January 28, 2023
In most cases, our projects concern residential spaces that we are often asked to renovate or design from scratch.
In this field, we have now gained a fair amount of experience, which allows us to move in a rather casual manner in the design gesture, but which often leads us to ask the client for an interaction, with the aim of tailoring the domestic space to his/her measure.
In this case, however, we were asked to design a commercial space on the ground floor of an ancient building, in one of the most important streets of the historic center of Trapani.
The ephemeral nature of this kind of creation and the use of the space for commercial purposes, put us in the position of having to deal with a different theme, within which we wanted to bring our way of looking at the project.
In tackling this work we realized that we had to simultaneously satisfy the needs of two customers!
On one hand Davide, who approached us commissioning the project and who traced the frame of a blank sheet of paper telling us his needs, illustrating the constraints and describing his idea of a functional layout.
On the other hand, a virtual but at the same time real customer (Davide's customers) with whom we could not relate, except by trying to imagine and understand their needs, once they entered the space we would have designed.
Inviting a third (virtual) person to the drawing board helped those "present" to question their own beliefs or preconceived ideas, opening up to a possibilistic attitude towards the final result.
Once this was done, it was easy to arrive at the idea for the project.
I believe that our first contribution was to create this condition of availability towards an open game and subsequently bring in our vision of the space, trying to calibrate it to the target of the boutique's clientele and adapting it to the image of the Corsini Store brand.
To do this we tried to translate the client's needs into a "our" vision, giving it a reading that was shared by our client, hoping that it will also be appreciated by the users of this space.
The construction site has started these days and the workers are already at work, totally immersed in the project.
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