Kilometro Rosso: stoneware styles the workspaces of the future

The Kilometro Rosso science and technology park originated in a core of buildings designed by Jean Nouvel for brake system manufacturer Brembo, completed in 2007 to house the Brembo SGL Carbon Ceramic Brakes laboratories and Research Centre. The campus is characterised by the iconic red band one kilometre long, designed by Nouvel in the form of a long wall clad with aluminium panels, which runs alongside the Milan-Bergamo motorway to create a distinctive identity. In the following years, the district was gradually populated by the University of Bergamo laboratories (2009), Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri (2010), i.Lab belonging to Italcementi (completed in 2012 to a design by Richard Meier) and the local Confindustria headquarters (2015).

The latest arrival is the Pixel office building, designed by Turin firm De Ferrari Architetti, with a double-layer facade screen-printed throughout. Two eating-places occupy the whole of the ground floor: Pixel Bistrò, a restaurant with table service and three private rooms, with seating for more than eighty diners, and KMR Selfy, a coffee-shop and self-service restaurant seating 280 people, both designed by Luca Bombassei, founder of the architecture firm of the same name.

“Kilometro Rosso is a small town", Luca Bombassei tells us. "Almost 2,000 people work, study and meet there: daily life needs locations, and almost spontaneously the genius loci created the piazza, initially, and then the catering outlets, as its natural evolution. The traditional desk, individual workstation and wiring connections no longer constitute the only definition of a work space. A piazza or a coffee-shop can be just as effective as a place where work is done. The interconnection of ideas is the life-blood of Kilometro Rosso, and what could be better than a meeting-place like a restaurant or bistro for nurturing it?"

The red of Jean Nouvel's long wall and the greenery of the forty hectares of grounds surrounding the buildings were fundamental in the choice of colour-schemes for the two catering outlets, with a predominance of black and touches of colour to define their functions and specific features.

“The Marazzi range of porcelain stoneware coverings helped us a great deal by supplying a wide choice of materials with absolutely natural textures,” Luca Bombassei confirms, adding: “The material-looks and versatile installation enabled us to maintain the monochrome effect we wanted while retaining great freedom to establish elements of harmony within the diversity."

In the Bistro, the wood-look stoneware of the Treverkmust collection, size 25x150 centimetres, in its Selection variant in Brown colour, is used in combination with the Hello series tiles, in black and with Diamantato Lux finish in the 7.5x15 centimetres size, which evokes all the typical beauty of traditional ceramics.

In the Selfy restaurant, on the other hand, the stone-look stoneware of the Mystone Ceppo di Gré collection in Anthracite shade – in 60x60 cm size on the floor and 75x150 cm on the wall – again dialogues with the vivacious Hello series, in yellow and in the black variant, with Lux finish.