When Sicit decided to extend its headquarters in Arzignano, a small town just to the west of the Italian city of Vicenza, it emphasized a desire for light, welcoming and relaxing spaces. The architects responded to this brief with contrasting light surfaces and dark doors and windows, and white and wooden furnishings that are enlivened by careful touches of green. A highly successful producer of bio-stimulants, the company’s project to expand its headquarters spreads across four floors. Estel is another well-established company from the same part of the world, this time the town of Thiene, and for decades it has been finding ideal design furnishing solutions for homes and offices. In this project, its work focused on the second and third floor with a total floor area of 1,300 sq. m and 70 workspaces. 
The Estel group was an active participant in designing the layout of the new spaces and during their construction, working closely with the client. Its focus was primarily the working and managerial spaces, a training room, other meeting spaces and the extensive board room, with an adjoining lounge area. The decision to use an open-space approach to the workstations was to ensure proximity between different functions and add visual continuity, an element that is seconded through the addition of Vele Fix, which are basically floor-to-ceiling bookcases that double as partition walls and provide plenty of space for items and materials. The spaces for meetings and group work integrate sound-dampening solutions, such as Collaborative Room, a sort of glass box that blocks out external noise, or Dolly Chat, a combination of sofas designed to encourage discussion and debate, while also offering a chance for relaxation. For both floors, Estel chose to add wall units to the perimeter walls to add a stylistic element while also offering plenty of functional space for the employees. This also freed up the inner spaces to be used solely for individual working. Estel used a range of solutions across the two floors, including Cartesio, a storage system which supports the worktops, and Frattale, which increases the number of different combinations possible using variously-sized triangular joints for linear and circular desks. For the collective spaces, elegant meeting tables from the Altagamma range where chosen, with metal bases and wooden and glass tops, while for the executive areas, the Grand More line was the order of the day, with an extensive range of finishings. To provide room for files and books, the E-Wall system was used, with boiserie that can be set up with ornamental panels in different heights on which shelves, cubes and suspended cabinets with sliding or hinged doors can be mounted. The final pieces were the sofas and armchairs from the Saint Barth collection, with the Darwin coffee tables, to create a minimal effect without compromising on comfort, and the Embrasse chairs.