Staff Reporter
TAKE an austere concrete shell, lob some paint at it, and what have you got?
The ominously-titled building, LH135.
This is the latest ambitious project of Mariano, the award-winning Madrid design studio, famed for its non-conformist style and ‘a certain sense of humour’.
Headed by Mariano Martin, the firm has just completed transformation of a drab office block into a wash of eye-catching colour in a bid to restore ‘joy’ to the workplace.
Bright pink, yellow, orange and blue are at all at play here to create an office space which, according to Martin, is ‘trying to look back with affection but without nostalgia’.
He adds that with the colours, ‘time will gradually return to the building the joy it used to have’.
In this renovation of the 3000 m2 space, colour is boldly employed to highlight the block’s formerly bleak elements, including air ventilation shafts, terrazzo floor tiles, concrete pillars and limestone facade.
Martin champions the original features: “The beauty of a terrazzo floor, like the one used in the impressive Venetian palaces, the nobility of the concrete pillars, as the Romans taught us, a limestone facade and a granite hall…can you ask for more?”
