The lines of light are a flexible decorative element to express the designer's creativity. In the lighting project of “Scatolificio del Garda”, this light application has allowed to emphasize the horizontal design of the façade, perfectly suiting the architectural envelope in shape and colour.

Scatolificio del Garda is a leading company in the production of disposable tableware for catering food, operating since 1969 in Italy near Lake Garda. To celebrate its 50 years of activity, the company’s structure was involved in an impressive architectural restyling and SIMES was chosen to enhance through light the facade and volumes of the renewed corporate headquarters.

“The leading need for the project was to create an extension for the office area and therefore a new administrative, operational and managerial space”.  Arch. Sandri

The idea that inspired the architect Nico Sandri, was to incorporate the new and existing buildings within a box-shaped structure designed, to recall the firm’s core business.


The aluminum coating to mark the horizontal trend

The project is based on the founding materials of architecture - wood, stone, steel, concrete, glass - used in their most natural way to create a simple and direct architectural language. The design was expressed through a burnished aluminum coating made of longitudinal slats which, overlapping the front volume, gives a sense of continuity to the facade. The whole building has been incorporated under an aluminum skin, that recalls the conceptual appeal of the "box", and on other hand protect the glass surfaces from sunlight and avoid the excessive overheating of the internal environments. The choice of the horizontal trend of the facade is linked to the position where the building stands, facing the street:

“The horizontal runs were created to replicate the optical effect that is obtained by traveling the road with the car at speed. The landscape is deformed into horizontal lines that move contrary to the direction of travel, just as the headlights of the cars are transformed into lines of light ”. Arch. Sandri

The designer tried to enhance sense of lightness for the heavy building. This concept was expressed using the longitudinal pattern of the aluminum sunscreens, but also through the choice of the bronze colour: the burnished slats overlap the black of the rear facade to seek a sort of “light-and-shadow” effect, that changes according to the daytime, going from gold when the architecture is in full sun, to black when the exposure decreases.


Continuous Rod to mark the horizontal trend at night

Lighting "makes the architecture live" even when the offices are closed. SIMES' Continuous Rod marks the horizontal trend even during nighttime:

“The light bars were deliberately positioned with a different pattern than the one of aluminum slats, to create a second night effect on the facade. The use of the Continuous Rod marks strongly the horizontal trend." Arch. Sandri

Continuous Rod was customized and painted in the same burnished bronze color used for the façade to completely "disappear" in architecture during the daytime. This was a fundamental concept, granted by the customization on SIMES products.

To complete the architectural concept, the large entrance breaks the façade scheme and scenically marks the main entrance. KEEN spotlights direct their light towards the metal frame creating a visual "void of light” that stands through the horizontal continuity of the facade.

The entire structure rests on a heavy concrete basement, which is lightened during the night by the Ghost recessed luminaire: the Ghost light is completely integrated into the concrete and gives lightness, so that the architecture above appear as a floating element.

“No additional material is added to the existing one. Ghost simply becomes concrete that produces light”. Arch. Sandri


CREDITS: Scatolificio del Garda

PROJECT: Nico Sandri Studio

PHOTOGRAPHY: Mario Bertani