In this design, we experimented with informal partitioning, from semi-transparent to semi-opaque. The director’s office is designed as a room with a circular extension that is a shared meeting area defined by a semi-transparent glass wall that is a sandwich of silk cloth in between two glass panels. The other office features a wooden door that is punctured by big round holes, and thus is semi-opaque. Similarly, the journalists’ offices are open on both sides, on one side with sliding partitions towards the corridor to maximise personal interaction between the staff, and on the other through the wave-like bookshelf at the rear, which opens every now and then towards the production area.
The volume acts as a separation between the circulation area and the office open space. The circulation area is connected to the entrance and the reception; it dialogues with the journalist’s hot desks through a set of windows and, similarly to House in a Flatted Factory, features a widening that allows for extra space for the informal area of the pantry, the storage entrance and the toilet area.
We also made use of a difference in level that, in this case, is not practical but just a spatial device, a threshold, for the separation between the main office spaces and the open area, and also serves as a strategy to increase the view of the window from the back side of the floor.