A seaside dental clinic

Nestling on the coast of the Ionian Sea amid the stunning scenery of the Gulf of Squillace, Montepaone Lido (previously known as Muscettola) falls under the municipality of Montepaone, which lies some eight kilometres away. The area has developed rapidly in recent times. Until a few decades ago, there was virtually nothing here. Today, Montepaone Lido is a flourishing seaside resort with efficient services, hotels and guesthouses. As often happens in situations of this kind, the town is home to very few people in the winter but expands to bursting point in the summer with the arrival of tourists and seasonal residents who work elsewhere but return for the holidays. The dental clinic of Dr. Froio is strategically located on the ground floor of a building in Via Nazionale, the main road that traverses the town parallel to the SS 106 Ionica main road.
The clinic was internally restructured and refurbished recently. Franco Guglielmelli, the architect behind the project explains: «In agreement with the owner, we took the blue seas and skies of the Gulf of Squillace as our inspiration for the new décor. After all, the seaside is only a short distance away. We used porcelain tiles with a lapped, mirror-finish surface for the reception, waiting room and operating room.» After a thorough selection process, large format, lapped and polished tiles from La Fabbrica’s Kauri Tasman Tech collection were chosen to create a continuous, uninterrupted floor surface suggestive of the vastness of the sea. «With their surface patterning and rectified edges, these highly original large format tiles allowed us to evoke the breaking of the waves on the shore.»
The visually striking floor is complemented by minimalist, essentially styled, brightly coloured and flush fitting doors with centre panels in 6 mm thick monolithic glass finished in blue gloss lacquer. The glass surrounds and door handles are in aluminium. The door opening solutions range from classic swinging to modern sliding systems and were chosen to suit the size of the room. The natural finish of the aluminium frames and handles reflects the cold, grey shades of the floor.
The same tones are repeated by various items of furniture, conveying a tactile and visual sensation of cleanliness and hygiene. The studio’s furnishings and wall coverings reflect the same themes and colours to form the continuous spectrum of blue desired by the customer. This repeats on the clinic’s only external door, which is made from acid-etched glass (polished on one side). Unlike the interior doors, this has no frame and slides on a stop-free rail. Even the scenes depicted on the walls are predominantly blue: a deep blue ocean sky with a seagull hanging on the breeze, and a mountain landscape with a softer blue sky.