projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

slam jam new headquarter is located at the edge of town, in an industrial area 2 kilometres away from ferrara city center. built on via ferrari in the middle of rows of anonymous looking warehouses, slam jam is the first visible building along the street, if you come from the city: it stands out thanks to the sculptural shape of its architectural volume but at the same time it suits the industrial background it is sorrounded by. established by luca benini in 1989, slam jam is one of the most important distributors of streetwear clothing, whose development over the years allowed the parallel acquisition of more sophisticated markets. paying attention to everything that is about fashion, but not only, over the years slam jam strongly contributed to spread around italy the street culture under all its aspects: music, art and sport events. beyond the intentional choice of the location, builder-owner luca benini also gave importance to a project that could combine a warehouse, living and working spaces, and a showroom. the architecture also reflects liveliness and variety: the contemporary cult-style of the company. the polygonal volume includes rooms of various heights placed around an orthogonal core of staircases and secondary rooms. two courtyards with façades without linear reliefs create incisions, which provide a view towards the interior and vice versa. terraces are placed also on the third upper floor and on the floor. the structure made of ready-mix concrete, characterized by continuous glass walls and construction elements made of variously and industrially processed metals and fabrics, indulges with its simplicity and smoothness to the complexity and rough shape of the building volume. the lighting of the building, realized by Viabizzuno, followed the project step by step and satisfied the requirements, putting itself in the service of an architecture that is never completely finished. it is a volume open to new experimentations. in the offices, they chose ceiling tracks with adjustable spotlights that shape the outlines of a flexible space, in hold, available to new destinations of use. for the transit areas and the stairs, the light has been conceived and designed to discretely facilitate the orientation, marking the borders between spaces and the silhouette of architectural volumes. in the common rooms dedicated to conviaviality – studio, playground, reading room, kitchen – the light creates a domestic atmosphere revealing objects, art fragments and installations that populate the spaces like in a collector’s house. the light for the outdoor is oblique on the floor and contributes to underline the monumentality of the cement walls. the surrounding fence has been conceived as an ornament; at the same time, they made it suit the backgroud with a frame of wire netting and floors made of labelled asphalt.