The new emotional environment created by designer Alessandro Luciani for Grottini’s 40th anniversary is not simply an exhibition space but rather a unique setting in which visitors can interact and experience a social moment in which to exchange.
Most importantly, it is where they can draw on ‘contamination’ from all over the world, this being the origin of any winning idea today. Within this space, there is no lack of opportunity for visitors to have some fun, experimenting and playing with innovative materials in order to create new outlooks and colour combinations.
The Inspirational Hub was created at Grottini’s Porto Recanati office, where the family-run company that supplies furnishings for retail outlets was founded 40 years ago. Today, Grottini has become a large international group with offices in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Dubai, India, Taiwan, China and the USA. It deals in developing retail spaces, in communication and in technology for shops.
A high-impact space
Retail designer and Creative Director Alessandro Luciani created a high-impact space in order to tell the story of a company which has developed with such sweeping success. He has done so in the form of a black box created, paradoxically, to admire light and its content.
The entire Inspirational Hub is set in a dark environment in which ‘motorway’ links stand out, or better strips of bright green (the colour of the Grottini brand). Said links intersect with various different environments, exactly like the work Grottini carries out, but also become visual roads which stimulate intersections of thought.
All crossings – both visitors’ footsteps and their thoughts – that can be experienced inside the International Hub are guided by an iconic shape: a hexagon, i.e. the symbol of interaction par excellence. The hexagon, in this case a personalised version, is an element of graphic continuity in each and every one of the Hub’s different environments.
“I studied the project so visitors could enjoy this exciting experience to the full. Not just by going through the main entrance,” states Alessandro Luciani, “but also from above, on the upper floor, where they can enjoy a different and indeed surprising view, just as our thought patterns can be different and ‘lateral’ as it were.”
The Inspirational Hub Grottini is organised in four different environments
The Museum space tells the story and valorises the history of 40 years of Grottini, from 1975 to today, through the hexagons which become bright frames and contain both photographs and materials, creating an intimate and evocative environment.
The Central Social Space features small bright hexagonal tables and stools, set in a stimulating environment where the walls display photographs telling of the work the company has done and totems explain its projects. The base of the totems is hexagonal in shape, and they develop upwards, giving the impression they rise up from the earth, maintaining the continuity of the bright thread.
The Communication Space is where visitors play with the effects of perspective and colour using innovative magnetised materials, bringing to mind the psychedelia of the 70s, for example. The Communication Space thus qualifies as an ‘entertainment room’, i.e. a space for experimenting with and experiencing the potential and scope these innovative materials offer.
The Technology Space is dedicated to technological innovation and the values Grottini wants to develop in order to help build a better world. This is why an environmentally-friendly shop has been designed here, created using sustainable materials, LED lights and recycled wallpaper. This section of the Hub features all the most innovative technology that can be applied to the retail world today.
