Reale Group Headquarters

By Caterina Testa - 7 December 2017
Cotto d'Este, Vimar, Guardian Glass have participated in the project

The city of Turin in northwest Italy grew up around an ancient Roman castrum whose strict orthogonal grid was followed by all subsequent phases of urban expansion. The original Roman layout was extensively built on during the 17th and 18th Centuries, and has remained relatively unaltered ever since. As if to underline its ties with the city, the new Turin headquarters of insurer Reale Group is located in the southwestern part of the city center where the old Roman and medieval walls once stood. The buildings on this block had undergone a series of enlargements and story additions until 1969, the year in which plans to turn this section of the block into offices were approved. After purchasing the property, Reale Group set about developing its new business headquarters. The new program grafts contemporary architecture into the heart of the old city center. Occupying only the exact same footprint as the former building, the new building fits in between two other pre-existing condominiums on the block, one of which was incorporated and redeveloped to become part of the new offices. The result is a fully renovated city block. 23,500 sq. m of office space are distributed across the four sides of the block - bordered by Corso Siccardi to the west, Via Bertola to the south, Via Dalmazzo to the east and Via Santa Maria to the north - around a remodeled inner court. With 800 workstations, 150 vehicle parking spaces and a 280-seat conference room, the complex was designed to bring all company operations under one roof in a state-of-the-art central office close to Reale’s historic headquarters in Via Corte d’Appello, with a view one day to creating a Reale Group campus. The design is the result of effective collaboration among a series of different professionals: Roberto Tosetti of Artecna, charged with overall project management; the firm Iotti + Paravani Architetti, who developed the envelope’s architectural design, and Archilabs, who were responsible...