WPP Milan.

Behind the aesthetics: substance with style.

We are working with WPP – the world’s biggest advertising and media company – on a number of projects across Europe.

The intention behind the ambitious Edificio 18 project was to bring together a number of WPP’s operating companies based in and around Milan for the first time, to improve both cross collaboration and cost effectiveness.

Analysing our options.

As part of our role, we undertook a detailed analysis of the energy strategy options, with the particular aim of minimising capital costs. This meant continually challenging the extent of proposed changes to the existing building fabric in order to avoid the level of intervention that would define the project as a new build rather than refurbishment.

The project was also subjected to a recently published and highly complex Italian fire code. We provided an in-depth fire engineering analysis, demonstrating how the staircases could be opened up to meet the architectural aspirations and still meet the strict safety requirements.

Enhanced environment.

We were tasked with designing the building to maximise the lettable area. With this in mind, we placed the plant locations externally and carefully designed them to ensure acceptance from the local municipality. For the workplace areas we explored a variety of servicing options, finding a way to deliver cooling and ventilation into the building whilst allowing the historic architecture to be exposed as much as possible. Our experience of designing varied servicing solutions meant the internal aesthetics of this unique building could be showcased in their full glory.