The arch. Franco Scaglia designs the GetFIT spaces and with him we discuss the Club of Via Stelvio in Milan.
Search for innovative materials, choice of colours, lights and perfumes make the stay in the Club (launched in October 2007) a real and proper emotional experience.
Architect Scaglia, can you give us some information on the project in its whole?
Designed and realised between 2007 and 2008 inside a former workshop for cars, the Club is characterised by the restaurant directly overlooking the public road (with all the advantages that this entails) and a fitness area embracing the empty space on the restaurant.
The various functions are arranged on three levels: entrance, offices and the restaurant on the ground floor, changing rooms and swimming pool on the middle floor, course rooms and fitness area on the first floor. In the basement, the SPA is connected directly to the changing rooms by a staircase.
How long did this project keep you busy for?
Design and realisation took a year and a few months, even if the SPA was completed subsequently.
Can you illustrate how the Florim products were used?
With regard to the ceramic tiles, for the first time, in this Club they were also used as pavement of the course rooms, in alternative to wood.
A very particular choice made by arch. Livio Leardi (owner of GetFIT), certainly in countertrend, but that has given excellent results, especially with regard to maintenance. The porcelain stoneware with highly resistant surface to slipping has obviously been used in the damp areas and, in particular, in the swimming pool.
Which is the design philosophy guiding Studio Scaglia?
Our office philosophy can be summarised in three points:
- make available the long experience in the wellness sector with regard to organising spaces, their dimensioning and the managing of the flows
- decontextualise the image of the Club to move as much as possible away from the old image of a gym, just sweat and hard work, realising for as much as possible premises where one is naturally made to feel better
- never forget that who invests a lot of money does so to have a return (or at least try) and not to emphasise the figure of the architect; or rather: with a lot of money available it is possible to do great things, but to do well with the right quantity, one must be good.
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