The new headquarter of the Victory School for beauticians and hairstylists

The project for the new headquarter of the Victory School for beauticians in Vicenza stems from the recovery of an abandoned industrial space in a state of neglect.
Located on the outskirts of Vicenza in the centre of a strategic road axis, the project has entirely redeveloped the surrounding residential area. The school has grown over a year, in close dialogue between the designers and the client, without ever losing sight of the main objectives: functionality, elegance and balance.

The idea of the client was clear from the beginning. The classic concept of the school had to be replaced by an intimate space such as a living room. Students should have been excited to be there because they should have felt at home or - why not – even better. This goal is strictly connected with the activities taught during the day: they focus on beauty, and the architecture has to host them through the clever use of light, materials and details.

The centre mainly develops educational paths of the professional school age range and organizes training and refresher courses for people who intend to start specific professional activities. The project envisaged the functional reuse of the existing building, preserving the existing shape and volume, with a distributive extension in the central courtyard.
The interior spaces have been emptied maintaining the existing structure, the walls and the roof and providing for adaptation to structural and seismic parameters and the overall energy requalification for the purpose of maximum reduction in consumption. At the heart of the project, a new lightweight steel and glass structure was created to improve circulation between the classroom spaces and the laboratories on the two floors.

Outside, the space being used as factory workers' parking, has been transformed into an intimate and cosy space: a green courtyard with a cherry tree in the centre, accessible to students during breaks and for summer events. Close to the courtyard, the lower body of the gym's changing rooms was added, the roof of which was covered with a spontaneous green of lichens visible from the windows on the first floor, which changes colours according to the seasons. The building was entirely clad on the outside with a fireproof insulating coat and bricks. A series of soft purple tone elements act as fil rouge between the external and internal spaces, generating a common thread that ends (or arises) in the entrance hall, defined by a play of resin-coated volumes that blend with the flooring.