With many years of experience designing highly-complex contracts to its name, integrated architecture and engineering services company MPPM won the contract to redevelop and reconfigure the Mercedes-Benz Italia HQ in Rome.
The renowned car company’s previous headquarters, also in the eastern part of town, was configured with services split among six separate buildings. The new layout gathered all these functions together in a single architectural complex around a central courtyard, rendering the company’s operations more efficient through flexible, modular spaces designed to optimize collective environment usage.
The design reworked and remodeled traditional spaces into “open spaces” for meetings and break areas, for personal enhancement, and for teamwork, in a building designed to offer comfortable, energy-efficient and highly functional working environments and cater to the needs of some 700 employees.
The structural layout focuses on a central courtyard featuring a green area on the ground floor and a large terrace on the first floor. The building spreads over four floors in elevation, plus a basement for parking. The ground floor houses services and common areas such as a lobby, conference area, company restaurant and large open/covered exhibition space. Offices and back-office services are on the upper floors, which also offer large areas for informal meetings and break time on each level, benefiting from natural light through fully-glazed walls. All interior materials and finishes were conceived to minimize unwanted reflection caused accidentally by LED lighting.
For the most part, the floors are laid with thick (5/6 mm)
two-tone carpeting, which also doubles as a visual aid for identifying meeting rooms and workspace functions. The carpet also plays an important role in acoustically enhancing the rooms, thanks to its built-in insulating, sound-absorbent underlay. The entrance hall is floored with large porcelain stoneware slabs; a rubber floor was laid in the canteen area.
The designers’ interior color choice was inspired by Mercedes’ flagship brand colors. This lends the entire building a sense of continuity and belonging. Light control played a prominent role in defining the project’s compositional aspects: the south-facing fronts - most affected by direct sunlight - are shielded by motorized adjustable brise-soleils managed by BMS, while all areas are equipped with targeted devices and systems that ensure solutions appropriate to function and emotional perception.
Location: Rome, Italy
Clients: Eusebio, Mercedes-Benz Italia
Completion Date: 2018
Gross Floor Area: 13,400 m2
Architect: MPPM
Project Leader: Roberto Bianchi
Construction Management: Andrea Gianni
Main Contractor and Developer: Eusebio
Services Engineering Consultant: Pras Ingegneria
FWS 50 Façade systems and AWS 75 BS.SI window systems: Schüco
False Ceilings and finishes: Armstrong Ceilings
Acoustic walls: Estel Group
Lighting Solutions: Zumtobel Group
Soundproofing systems: 4akustik by Fantoni
Photography by Moreno Maggi, courtesy of the author
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