LIU JO SHOWROOM

The architects reinvent a typical industrial building on the outskirts of Livorno to create a hybrid space where light, color, and material converge. The atelier-showroom serves both as an exhibition space and a color laboratory, dedicated to inventing and experimenting with the chromatic potential of surfaces and light. The project plays on the dualism between black and white, transparency and materiality, innovation and ancient techniques, to create a theatrical and impactful space. Although connected, the laboratory and showroom have separate entrances on different facades. The laboratory, facing the street, maintains an industrial aesthetic with original brickwork and plaster marked by shadows. A suspended staircase leading to the showroom conceals the entrance and serves as a tangible signal of the place. The building features a vibrant and lightweight skin with strong horizontal lines and large glass surfaces that create reflections and play with natural light. The chiaroscuro rigor redesigns the interiors while concealing externally. Two functions, two setups, two colors, marked and divided by movable and transparent elements. A veiled curtain invites and organizes spaces, while a glass partition separates offices and the showroom. Illuminating bodies reveal colors and atmospheres in constantly changing sequences, making the space dynamic. Strong contrasts, theatricality, and deep suggestions characterize this space designed for new experiments in light and color. The project is formally simple yet radical in its choices: the diaphanous light of crystal and the solid, substantial materiality of stone. At its core is the search for a natural lightness, an emotional environment, and materials sensitive to light. An apparently bare yet subtly sophisticated space, a baroque scene without decoration, pulsating and interactive with the seasons and human sensations. Natural light and LED illumination throughout project a perpetual state of “dawn”. A space not static but composite, seeming artificial in the sense of artifice, invention, and illusion.