Bassetti Home Innovation makes its debut in Milan

The flagship store opened by Bassetti Home Innovation in Milan’s Corso Buenos Aires last September is the first to convey the new image of the brand owned by the Zucchi Group. The opening of the new store forms part of the company’s five-year plan aimed at stepping up its direct retail presence in Italy and gradually expanding on international markets. The interior design concept is by Alessandra Dalloli and Studio Salaris. A long-established Bassetti store was already operating on the site before the refurbishment. It took the form of a long, narrow, rectangular open space. Access was through an airlock entry that had been created by moving part of one of the two display windows on the short side back slightly. The warehouse was at the back of the store. The basic layout has remained unchanged, but the entrance area has been simplified, the street-front display windows have been aligned, and access is now direct. The old warehouse had been created by building a large skylight over a typically Milanese-style courtyard with high-level access balcony. Its replacement, by contrast, has been incorporated into the store. The new Bassetti Home Innovation flagship store draws its inspiration from an emotional and organisational interpretation of nature, for which the starting point is the product. The design takes a three-pronged approach, involving the shell structure, the furnishing system and the emotive complements. The architectural space is left deliberately neutral, with materials that reflect the natural, textured-effect finishings. The flooring consists of offset, floorboard-format porcelain tiles from Caesar’s Wabi collection. The choice of colour (Barrique), the 20×120 cm format and the saw-cut finish are all reminiscent of hardwood flooring. The interior walls have been finished with a light grey, concrete-like skim-coat for thermal cladding, which gives the environment a pleasantly cocooned feel. The walls in the entrance area, meanwhile, have been scraped with a pick to highlight their layering, and then left bare. In homage to the building’s former incarnation, the two cast-iron pillars dating back to the 1920s have been retained. The furnishing system comprises nothing but the essential: racking with uprights in tubular steel and shelves in white natural larch, support surfaces in the shape of lakes, a backstage area for shop fittings, two platforms for a four-poster bed and a concrete-clad cash desk, backed by a wardrobe with wall-papered sliding doors. The aim of the emotive complements is to replicate the visual, tactile, aural and olfactory atmosphere of woodland, with the aid of technology, to produce the typical sounds and fragrances of the natural world, within a setting of stylised, life-size trees. The lighting design, produced by Rossi Bianchi Lighting Design, blends harmoniously into the overall context. Because of the materials and finishes used for the interior design, the specifiers had to choose LED lamps with high colour rendering index and high colour temperature, so as to provide a faithful view of delicate colour variations in fibres and natural colours. The lighting is directed towards the racking and furnishings, and illuminates the environment by reflection, in a balanced interplay of luminances, which channels attention towards the products on display, without affecting the overall perception of the space. In the entrance lobby and inner room, recessed, angle-adjustable luminaires are laid out in such a way as to establish visual continuity between the two areas.