New site for Coca-Cola HBC Italia

Fresh from relocation, the headquarters of Coca-Cola HBC Italia is the biggest bottler of The Coca-Cola Company products in the world. It is a key location, where European-level meetings are often held. As a result, the relocation required an action plan suited to the workspace, to company objectives and to the needs of people.

Generally speaking, the brand needed to be instantly recognisable and the employees needed to be properly stimulated and feel a strong sense of belonging, including from a visual and logistics perspective. Get all that right and output would increase. After all, “People, place, performance” is something of a raison d’être for the most well-known multinational company on the planet.

These objectives were fully realised by DEGW, a brand belonging to the Lombardini22 group which specialises in integrated workspace design. DEGW oversaw the entire process, focusing on a graphic identity used through the various spaces in a number of different ways. Transformed into different dimensions, it becomes an interactive support area. Built into a recess, it becomes a display to store and show off the product. And kept as a simple colour block, it becomes a graphic background dedicated to communication.

In this way, the brand identity emerges throughout the building’s four floors, simultaneously reinforcing that of the Lombard site. Enhancing the whole complex are a series of architectural details. A sheet of metal painted in red marks out the profiles and recesses, booths and meetings rooms, while wall prints and large photographs printed on aluminium add personality to the meeting rooms.

The products are showcased via a range of communication channels: by verbal description, the physical objects themselves and large images produced by the winners of a competition for young photographers. There is an almost museum-like sense to the space, and in a way the complex is an exhibition centre: it starts as soon as you enter the entrance hall, which is inspired by the original Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atalanta (where Coca-Cola was invented by John S. Pemberton and sold for the first time in 1886) – the perfect way to welcome guests and visitors.
The Coca-Cola identity is there for all to see on the seventh and top floor, where a large red ring adorns the floor, while smart-working and relaxation and leisure areas complete the space.

 

Owners: Coca-Cola HBC Italia
Main interior suppliers: Arper, Artigo, Artemide, Caimi, Cappellini, Flos, Kartell, Kastel, Milliken, Pedrali, Sedus, Unifor
Design team: DEGW, L22, FUD
Photos: Dario Tettamanzi