Sculptural custom-made furniture adds artistic flourishes to this otherwise minimal showroom and head office, designed by Spanish interiors studio Isern Serra for eyewear brand Gigi Studios.
Isern Serra was tasked with creating a holistic scheme for the 900-square-metre headquarters, occupying one floor of a building in the town of Sant Cugat del Vallès just north of Barcelona.
The brief called for a design that creates a sense of spaciousness and comfort while reflecting founder Patricia Remo’s vision of Gigi Studios as a brand.
“It is also serene, warm and elegant and conceptually close to the idea of a studio and away from the concept of a traditional office, without losing the practicality and functionality,” Isern Serra explained.
The building’s rectangular floor plan features a central service core housing the lifts and toilets, with the workspaces, meeting rooms, kitchen and showroom occupying the surrounding O-shaped open space.
Serra and his team positioned the kitchen and showroom at one end of the plan and placed the meeting rooms and client areas at the other, leaving the longer sides open to optimise circulation.
Various bespoke furniture pieces, conceived by Isern Serra as “small works of art”, bring a distinct personality to the different formal and informal spaces.
These interventions were designed to embody Gigi Studios’ design ethos while standing out against the warm and minimal backdrop.
“The project aims to experiment with the limits of the workspace and seek a new concept that goes hand in hand with the idea of domus and museum,” Isern Serra explained.
A large circular sofa framed in stainless steel provides a bold statement in one of the reception areas.
The sculptural piece fulfils a dual function as a seating area and a space for working, with tables and book storage integrated into the backrest around the perimeter.
Similarly, the building’s central core is wrapped in a layer of built-in storage units including circular stainless-steel niches that incorporate shelves for displaying books and materials.
Rather than a typical office layout with rows of workstations, the large open spaces are separated into more intimate zones with a more domestic scale.
Next to the lobby is a design area featuring tables made from concrete that was cast in situ. Task seating surrounds the work table and a taller table is accompanied by stools, while lenses for the different glasses are stored in a custom-made unit.
The second workspace features a large C-shaped sofa with a concrete base that was also cast in situ. Custom-made tables and one of Sabine Marcelis’s Boa Poufs complete this lounge-style space, which can be visually separated from the rest of the office using curtains on either side.
A circular window with rounded edges provides a glimpse of the showroom, which is dominated by two sculptural tables with concrete tops supported by rough chunks of travertine stone.
A built-in tiered display is used to highlight different Gigi Studios’ eyewear. The rest of the collection is housed in a backlit cabinet, while a mirror-fronted unit conceals a large screen used for presentations.
The kitchen is located next to the showroom so that the two spaces can easily be used together for events. Here, a homely, Mediterranean feel is created via a five-metre-long sharing table, custom-made alongside the accompanying stools.
The sizeable kitchen island is finished in micro-cement and features a curved base that enhances its sculptural presence.
A curved corridor incorporating a sofa niche on one wall provides access to offices and a meeting room positioned to have the best views of the surrounding countryside.
Internal columns are used to support one end of concrete tables built in each of the workspaces, furnished with classic designs including Marcel Breuer’s Wassily and Cesca chairs.
Interior designer Isern Serra founded his self-titled studio in Barcelona in 2008 and works across architecture, interiors and industrial design.
Previous projects including a rose-coloured shop for Barcelona’s Moco Museum that was based on a computer-generated image and a minimalist office for digital artist Andrés Reisinger, which was named small workplace interior of the year at the 2023 Dezeen Awards.
The photography is by Salva López with art direction by Aasheen Mittal.
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