A new building flexible and oriented towards employee well-being

A building designed rethinking the workplace as a corporate space capable of being flexible and adapting and transforming according to the evolving needs of the market but above all of the personnel over the years: today in Carbonera di Treviso the new building of the companies of the Fabbrini Family was presented.

After about two years, the construction works of the building that will now host the offices of the companies of the Fabbrini Family, international excellences of the territory, have been concluded. An intervention signed by the architects Michel Carlana, Luca Mezzalira, and Curzio Pentimalli of the Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli studio in Treviso, with which the designers imagined a cutting-edge building that, even before hosting offices, was a place capable of rethinking collective space.

A contemporary building structured on 4 floors: on the ground floor there are the institutional meeting rooms, the cafeteria, the showroom space, and the food area; on the first floor are the Itagency environments, while on the second floor are the environments of Exclama, Faba, and Maikii. The structure of each floor is repeated almost unchanged except for some distinctions related to the different business needs of each company. The roof space, enhanced by the particular artistic intervention of Lorenzo Mason Studio, has been used as a sports field, such as basketball and volleyball, but can also be used for events or conferences. There will be 180 employees working in the new headquarters, born from an investment of 5 million euros.

This business hub was born from a single man, Pietro Fabbrini, back in 1975. "I was just an employee when I decided I wanted to work for myself - Pietro recalls -. I left the company I was working for and contacted a cigar company, it was 1975. I started selling tobacco all over Italy. In 1984 we acquired the lighter agency, Tokai, which were the best-selling in the world. In 1997 Rizla, which from 20% market share, we left it at 70%. We were the first for a long time to distribute tobacco and all related items. We managed to have many more people than we could have by just selling tobacco. I am proud to have these two sons, Marco and Matteo, they have done well in developing what I created."

"We started from our new operational and logistical needs to have a headquarters that is also and above all a place of aggregation and sharing among people - said Marco Fabbrini, CEO of Itagency -. We have grown a lot in recent years, not only in terms of turnover, but also in terms of the number of resources. We needed a new, more efficient environment, a place capable of fostering dialogue and building relationships."

"We designed these spaces with particular attention to flexibility and adaptability, fundamental to accommodate and support the continuous growth of our companies. Each environment is designed to evolve together with the needs of our teams and the activities they host, ensuring that our headquarters can be a place of continuous innovation," added Matteo Fabbrini, CEO of Exclama, Maikii, and Faba.

Also present at the meeting was Paola, Marco's wife: "The actual reality of the work we do may not be correctly interpreted by those who do the work. So I conveyed to them what the real needs were within the offices. Each floor needs special spaces and services: today, thanks to this project, we will have them."

The official inauguration of the new spaces will take place on May 30.

Employee well-being as the basis of the project

The project was conceived primarily to improve the quality of the workplace, but above all to increase shared efficiency, while fully respecting each other's differences. The extremely permeable and flexible design of the spaces, particularly evident in the common areas throughout the building, is oriented towards the principle of full sharing and integration.

Attention to employee well-being is highlighted by the new Welfare program, which promotes a balance between work and personal life through initiatives such as a dedicated food area, a cafeteria, flexible hours, and continuous training.

The possibility of starting the workday between 7:30 and 9:30 while respecting the total hours fixed between 38 and 40 hours depending on the company, but with a short Friday for all employees, thus giving the opportunity to enjoy a longer weekend. In this way, the companies of the Fabbrini Family are committed to ensuring the psychophysical well-being of their employees.

Sustainability and architectural durability

The intervention is based on construction choices and durable materials linked to local tradition, reinterpreted in a contemporary key. The number of construction layers has been reduced to the essential minimum, preferring the use of "green" materials with CAM certifications. This approach brings numerous advantages both in the construction phase and during the lifecycle in terms of management and maintenance.

From an architectural point of view, the compactness of the office portion of the intervention is efficient and economically advantageous for numerous aspects, including the reduction of primary energy demand. The frame structure guarantees wide and scenic generated spaces that will allow a mutability of the work environments over time.

The concept of durability is also achieved by realizing visible technological systems to facilitate management and maintenance, minimizing any unnecessary coverings. Large sunshades protect the structure from solar overheating: the thermal efficiency of the building envelope is based on the concept of mass and thermal phase shift, in order to contain the dissipation of internal heat in the winter period and prevent the entry of external heat in the summer phase, requiring a minimal contribution of energy generated largely from renewable sources. A large photovoltaic system, installed on the roof of the warehouse area, generates clean energy for both offices and for powering machinery and electric vehicles.

Particular attention has been paid to limiting water waste through a particular system of collection and reuse of rainwater. To ensure a respectful and conscious relationship between man and nature, it is also planned to equip the interior spaces with a large number of plants whose presence will favor air oxygenation and optimization of the internal microclimate and naturally the decrease of CO2. At the landscape level, the designers have finally actively collaborated with a landscape agronomist and biologist in order to integrate the intervention with the surrounding green spaces which, using exclusively native flora, can self-sustain over time with minimal maintenance.

Logistics 4.0

The old headquarters will be completely renovated and the spaces will be converted into a logistics warehouse. The project is based on the principles of safety, flexibility, and sustainability for the worker, whose well-being remains the primary objective. In this new space, the digitization of the supply chain will play a strategic role as well as the automation of internal warehouse management through Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). The data-centric system will direct processes, improving performance and information flow respecting evasion times and optimizing the flows of goods in and out.