Magazine review FAMIGLIA

The redesign of an ice cream brand that highlights its family essence.

Two Famiglia stores achieve an image consistent with the product and its history.

Famiglia is a family SME that was born in 2020 in Córdoba province, with the aim of providing a gourmet experience with ice cream as an excuse. The biggest challenge was to capture the essence of the brand (as a meeting place for family and friends, and as a producer of creamy and artisanal ice cream) in a few square meters and with a very limited budget.

Innovative Design

“The client came to us looking for an innovative and particular design, —something that has not been seen before— and this type of task is what we like to work the most. The spirit of the studio is creative and for everything we do we seek to mark a before and after”, explains architect Pedro Ruiz Funes, from the architecture studio.

FRAME developed a project for two locations, at Villa Allende and at Urca, Córdoba Capital, which innovates in the way of perceiving space with material exploration as a premise. This young architecture studio is characterized by the search of a much simpler way of inhabiting and enjoying spaces, based on the concept of modular repetition as a design strategy.

In both locations they captured the corporate aesthetic with clarity and forcefulness. The design of the space was defined using three key concepts: color, the continuity of the environments and organic lines.

"Furniture is replicated with a different layout on the outside"

The ceiling, the focal point of the space

The protagonist of the brand is ice cream and therefore it was given a central place in the design of the premises, but in an unconventional way. By inverting the traditional composition of the space, the ceiling becomes the star element of the place and invites you to look up and immerse yourself in the sensory world of Famiglia.

The design of these suspended ceilings required the work of a large team of different professionals, including a meticulous art direction to define their morphology. Finally, after an extensive search and experimentation with different materials, it was decided to work with molding fabric, which allows to model the curves and spirals that refer to the creaminess of artisanal ice cream.

The piece is suspended by means of a 50x50mm flexible metal mesh hanging from the slab that covers the entire surface of the enclosure. This resource allows, in turn, to hide the installations and lighting fixtures, generating an enveloping spatial effect thanks to the transillumination on the organic lines of the fabric ceiling.

Space Layout

The stores have a similar size and morphology: a single rectangular space with a narrow and deep proportion where the customer service area and a service and storage area are located. The subtlety of the gesture of putting the focus on the ceiling and unifying the rest of the elements using a single color achieves the sensation of greater spatial amplitude.

This decision is enhanced by the interior-exterior integration thanks to the continuity of the furniture and the incorporation of plants within the premises, a growing trend within the gastronomic pole.

All the interior equipment is fixed and has reflective surfaces, which emphasizes, together with the mirrors strategically located near the carpentry, the lighting effects and the fluidity of the entire design.

The particularities of each premises are given with the design of the furniture made by the studio in collaboration with Neo Interior. In both places, the same color and materials are used, but disposed differently in each space. The fluidity of the interior advances over the exterior, prolonging the lines of the furniture, which with its simple shape and its color block, the circulation of the access and the meeting places are inferred. The choice of a single color as the protagonist of the space is far from being monotonous, since it offers infinite shades and textures thanks to the variety of materials on which it is applied and its different finishings.

“I believe that the ceiling evidences and demonstrates everything that the brand wanted to be, and luckily it is a landmark that makes people talk, a creative and unique object, made with a small budget but with great impact, functional, simple and sophisticated”, says Ruiz Funes.

This architectural project, where with a limited number of elements and resources a great spatial quality that awakens the senses was achieved, demonstrates once again that less is more.

Project: FRAME Studio (SET Ideas in Córdoba).

Images by Gonzalo Viramonte.

Architects in charge: Arch. Carlos Arias, Arch. Heriberto Martinez, Arch. Pedro Ruiz Funes.

Design Team: Arch. Pedro Ruiz Funes, Arch. Manuela Toledo, Arch. Juan E. Biassi.

Construction administration and management: Arch. Pedro Ruiz Funes, Arch. Manuela Toledo.

Graphics: https://www.behance.net/unmediestudio/ UnMedio. Art: Maria Meglioli.

Landscaping: https://www.instagram.com/vivehogarr/ Francisco Pascualini.

Colaboradores: Carolina Rufeil, Valentina Bertossi.

Approximate dimensions per store: 50 m2.

https://www.clarin.com/arq/arquitectura/rediseno-heladeria-destaca-esencia-familiar_0_EY03dddoV1.html

https://revistaestilopropio.com/obra/heladeria-famiglia-by-set/