ZENGROUP HEADQUARTERS | ARK-architecture

This project is a headquarters of a group of companies with the textile industry as main activity.

For us, the design of a head office of a company brings to know perfectly the foundations, the history and its implications in the future. The project was not meant to be just a simple, attractive contemporary building, it had to make sense.

So we wanted to offer a unique aspect for this project very related to its vocation and principally to the textile field.

Fabric in motion

For the main facade, having 40m width by 18m height overlooking a famous avenue in the area, and receiving a large vehicular and pedestrian flow, we took our inspiration from the movement of fabric and the textile thread-making machines that communicates rhythm, order and repetition. So we designed a particular structure composed of a technically evolved assembly of 47 aluminum profiles of 14m height spaced by 70cm. These profiles were arranged in a perfectly studied parametric positions that vary slightly in order to produce a Hyperbolic paraboloid shape.

And that’s how, with architectural elements we obtained the shape of a large moving fabric.

Depending on the position from which we look to the project, the Aluminium profiles are giving a changing appearance: from total transparency when we are just in front of it, to growing opacity when going far away from left or right .

Colors / Diversity

Apart from the textile industry, the owners of the project have started to develop in new sectors during the last years. So we tried to communicate the idea of “diversity” by using colors under several interpretations whether from the outside or the inside.

The fully glazed facades, incorporate colored panels. Which provide, with the changes of the natural lights during the day, an interesting mixture of colors, reflections and shadows, allowing to obtain a constant dynamism for the facade and the workspaces.

Characterful Interiors

Avoiding the routine of official buildings, the interior spaces designed mainly for creative fashion designers in "maximalist" style, exposes all the technical and mechanical equipment’s in a well-studied way to transform into a strong point everything we used to hide

The interior spaces include open spaces, different types of open and closed offices, formal and informal meeting spaces, relaxation areas, and each of these spaces has been designed in harmony with the project but in an adapted and diversified style concerning the choice of relative materials and equipment such as floor treatments, walls and ceilings, lighting, colors and materials, furniture, acoustic treatment, etc.

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This mixture of forms, materials and colors used in perfect harmony for this project offers the operators a pleasant and inspiring work environment and an original exterior appearance that give the building a unique power of expression and make it, one of the most emblematic of the city.