Coop Lombardia Brand Architecture
'Civic retail': a brand architecture project creating a new functional and formal ‘super-market’ model
Civic Value:
The supermarket as a place of community
With Coop Lombardia, we're defining a new business model, designing the supermarket as a place of sale as well as a space for social gathering and knowledge exchange − a proper community hub. This is a transversal project that addresses architectural, commercial and social themes, connected to the values of the brand and its physical representation.
Civic retail
Through the manipulation of design and architectural archetypes that have always belonged to the image of public buildings, using non-ephemeral materials and a contemporary compositional and formal language, we designed a concept that outlines a new functional and formal model for the retail programme, named 'Civic Retail'.
- ClientCoop Lombardia
- StatusCompleted
- Year2024
- AreaVarious dimensions
- Design team
Founding Partners: Filippo Pagliani, Michele Rossi Project Director: Alessandro Rossi Project Leaders: Francesco Garofoli Landscape Director: Marianna Merisi Product & Furniture Design Director: Marco Sorrentino Architects: Francesco Caputo, Davide Cazzaniga, Daniele Ferrari, Francesca Pellizzaro, Alessandra Peracin, Gianluca Ancora, Davide Caccia Facade specialist: Enrico Sterle Graphic designer: Caterina Aquili Model maker: Federica Arici Visualizers: Antonio Cavallo, Giulia Bartoli, Stefano Venegoni, Ida Jonassen
"The design approach to large-scale retail focuses on the primary goal of embedding and blending the urban context with the commercial force that the program requires. This generates a mutual transfer of potentiality between the building and its urban surroundings."
"Elevating the perception of the supermarket to the level of civic architecture is a design imperative."
The architectural box
The supermarket building is generally characterised by its intrinsic simplicity, easy to replicate and build, sometimes becoming an introverted box with no architectural character. The Coop concept envisages the box being hollowed out at the corners, corresponding to its entrances, and this subtraction of volume generates a greater degree of porosity and openness towards the outside.
The volume
The shed-style panelling on the building's roof lets the natural light into the retail space. The volumetrics have been split between a lower level and an upper level projecting over the entrance, which accentuates the plastic gesture of hollowing out the corners.
