The result is a small creative town whose community shares working spaces but also common ones, those where emerge the full meaning of working together and sharing different skills.

As one of the company's primary future growth strategies, "Diesel, the Italian top-brand fashion design company that has exported its denim jeans philosophy all over the world," decided to house the entire group's core operational units, that were previously dispersed throughout the Vicenza Province, into a new corporate headquarters building. Aesthetic qualities and functional operation of the work areas were the prevailing elements required to fulfil the organization's goal of a successful working environment, placing Diesel near the top of the "Great Place to Work" list.

It was important to establish specific, recognizable qualities in harmony with the company's corporate identity: the architectural language needed to reflect a contemporary and innovative approach, even if this risked going beyond conventional tastes that would have surely led to a less flexible design. A conducive environment for talented workers inspires imaginative ideas and, taking into account that future strategies of 'Made in Italy' industries should encourage creativity and change, the guiding tenet of this project was to concentrate on bold innovation, creating a workplace tailored to creative and intellectual labour that is on-going 8-10 hours a day. In short, Diesel strived to pioneer solutions where workspace equates cultural well-being for its human resources.

With this approach in mind, special attention was given to the relationship between the project designers and Diesel executives, and an internal supervisor was named to oversee the project's development. All decisions concerning the project – the dimensions of the different operating units, the choice of materials, the location and interconnectedness of different activities – were discussed with the Diesel Creative Team (which developed the interior design project concept).

The preliminary spatial planning studies and related logistics assessments were aimed at gathering information, analysing the results and submitting Diesel's requirements to the architectural designer so that these would be applied as the basis for the Master Plan and the ensuing developmental stages of the project. In other words, the industrial plans and time schedules, organizational charts, spaces, requirements, working areas, auxiliaries, ancillaries and space use criteria, the occupancy standards and operational criteria of areas, such as adjacencies and operational and rational flow schemes, were all defined in advance.

The analysis, which was given to the designer, went so far as to suggest the modular and flexibility criteria that best suited the project and, thus, guided the designers towards adopting a planning unit that became the common denominator for the standards applied to the space: 135 x 135 cm. The overall space requirements calculated into the project were directly connected to this module and used as the basis to determine the investment budget. The module also influenced the development of the triple-wing operational units of the administrative offices that provide efficiency, flexibility of application and optimum distribution between workspaces and ancillary spaces.

Therefore, a determining factor in the success of the Diesel project was the rational planning of requirements and needs. This information, collected into a spatial planning document, was a factor that influenced the project's orchestration together with urban and territorial considerations.

The new Diesel Headquarters was built on the grounds of a former industrial site (the Moto Laverda building in Breganze), thereby renovating a 90,000 square-meter plot of land that had been allocated to a local engineering industrial facility. The complex essentially comprises five main building units: corporate offices, warehouse/museum facilities, an auditorium, a nursery, and a central utilities operation/monitoring and security services facility. The main activities located within the complex are:

- Shipping and receiving warehouse for raw materials and samples

- Clothing archival collection and conservation facilities ("Museum")

- Private covered and uncovered parking areas

- Corporate office building unit on three floors above ground and technical support facility on a subterranean level

- Fitness centre, squash court and five-a-side soccer fields

- Cafeteria and kitchen

- Showroom

- Multifunctional auditorium and foyer for events

- Data Development Centre

- Nursery and kindergarten

- Security services and main entrance

- Central Utilities support facilities

The general layout of the entire building complex was influenced by the shape and size of the grounds, the urban and construction official regulatory requirements, as well as input data. The road that extends southwards from the main provincial road that runs along the east perimeter of the property dictated its orientation on the site. Vehicle and pedestrian entrances are located along this axis. The central entrance delineates a north-south directional corridor that divides the two main corporate organizational areas: the west side includes the warehouses and loading bay areas; the east side houses corporate offices, although the second and third floor levels partially extend above the warehouse facilities with two suspension bridges on the north and south ends.

The new headquarters not only successfully reflects functional requirements, but also responds to important environmental considerations, which include precise, rural spatial regulations concerning its surroundings as well as new site-specific provisions and stipulations: warehouses, detached houses, vegetable patches, gardens and infrastructure facilities. The territorial land use design reflects features of both the city and the countryside, two worlds that seemingly contradict, yet attract each other at the same time.

This notion motivated the design team to find solutions that expressed the specific nature of a landscape society which, in the case of this project, translated into emphasizing a sense of well-being and creating optimum living/working conditions. The environmental conditions were, therefore, deliberately confronted and incorporated, and the project emphasizes its "urban nature" through a complex articulation of autonomous spaces that are nevertheless interrelated. The resulting composition is based on an extremely rational planimetric layout that defines the architectural hierarchy of common areas (the entrance hall and reception area, the cafeteria-bar, the fitness centre, and the auditorium) and private areas (the administration offices and the warehouse facilities).

An intricate combination of empty and filled spaces echoes this architectural hierarchy and limits volumes and masses, creating a quality of buoyancy in the architectural structure, particularly by manipulating rhythmic effects of light and darkness; the end result being a continuous oscillation or dialogue between inside and outside. The project takes advantage of the existing morphological features: starting with the entrance to the site and the interior traffic corridors, a portion of the excavated structure was re-graded and landscaped below the average street elevation of the southern axis road. Hence, the entrances and the parking areas are on a level that is 3.5 meters below the ground level, warehouse facilities that are at street elevation, and the loading/unloading bay area that is 1.2 meters below.

This approach permitted maximum gains in vertical elevation that comply with the maximum uniform heights allowed by existing urban parameters and codes, and the development of varied nuances in the landscape design of exterior areas: interior courtyards that function as community areas, creative meeting points and relaxation areas; defined, 'soft' thresholds between indoors and outdoors that ensure panoramic views for employees but restrict the inward view from outside; sports fields and recreational facilities integrated into the layout; a strong emphasis on plant variety that creates specific sensations in different areas; and hanging gardens that offer contemplative views and ecologically sensitive comfort to the buildings.

The planimetric and volumetric composition that orchestrates the agglomerate of new, multifunctional structures encompasses and organizes the traffic flow to and from the different areas. The flow is most complex at ground level due to the variety of entrances and exits that are segregated into pedestrian and vehicular access points for visitors/clients, employees, articulated trucks and commercial vehicles, as well as covered and uncovered parking areas, and loading and unloading bay areas.

These areas with different functional specificities were integrated into the overall layout of the terrain (courtyards to facilitate orientation and distribution flows, and determine clear access points) and provided the basis for integrating the site; they function as the link between environmental sustainability and landscape value, while the building volumes float freely within the larger matrix of the site – largely suspended off-ground – defining the needs of the functional program.

The volumes are simple, box-like modules that incorporate the "maximum program requirements with a minimum of architecture". Set on top and adjacent to one another, they create an architectural language of multiple scales and visual rhythms that break up the perception of a solid, horizontal mass.

Overall scale was dictated by the desire to address the small-scale needs of individuals as well as the large-scale spatial requirements of roughly one thousand employees. Its dimensions, therefore, re-establish the complex's iconic value as a building and, seen from a distance, reveal a spatial distribution and intricacy that reflects the complex functional program.

The wall coverings combine a variety of selective cladding materials that regulate the degree of enclosure and expanse, reflecting a configuration of continuous, flowing façades and large, glass wall systems.

Copper cladding, panoramic glass wall systems or translucent polycarbonate façades, and fiber-cement cladding augment kinesthetic experience (geometry, color, space) to convey a more immediate, direct and perceptible architectural design, given the rigorous materiality of the volumetric structures that layer and overlap each other according to the kind of materials used. Rising from the basic unit are a series of empty spaces and glass panes; this scheme, along with the glass wall systems on the top floor and the translucent façades of the museum unit above the warehouse facilities, is key to breaking up otherwise defined boundaries, creating a sensation of suspension that softens the volumetric consistency of the building.

The design concept of the entire complex strictly adheres to issues of environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility. Environmental impact and employee comfort were evaluated through an extensive analysis of the site, water consumption, sustainable energy solutions, materials use and performance, and air climate quality.

The end result is a services sector industrial complex at the forefront in the application of technological solutions (photovoltaic system, green roofs, trigeneration system, meteoric water collecting system), in civil structural design and detailing (lightweight floors and ceilings, high-performance opaque and transparent exteriors), in centralized management and control systems (regulation of external roller blinds and steerable wooden solar shading devices), and in controlling interior conditions for a healthy and comfortable climate (employee facilities with low sound pressure levels and acoustic insulation, air ventilation via chilled beam devices, radiant heat systems in large floor-space areas). This environmental sensitivity and its applications awarded the architectural complex a Class A energy efficiency standing by the Milan Polytechnic University, who provided consulting services on the appropriate certification of sustainability.