NEW YORK, U.S. – The prominent New York City architecture, design, and planning firm of Montroy DeMarco Architecture (MDA) and Turin, Italy-based Isidoro Mastronardi of Studio aCd Architetti have completed the expansion of the U.S. headquarters office and showroom of the leading global coffee supplier and equipment manufacturer Lavazza, also based in Turin.
Located at 120 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan’s popular Wall Street Financial District, the newly added 6,500-square feet coffee equipment showroom and administrative office section occupies the entire 32nd floor of the building owned by Silverstein Properties. MDA also designed Lavazza’s original showroom and U.S. headquarters office, located on the 27th Floor in the same building. Following the expansion, Lavazza now occupies 18,200 square feet within the East River waterfront office tower. MDA collaborated with the Italian design team to introduce Lavazza’s global design standards into an American office environment.
According to Lavazza Property and Facility Manager, Antonio Curlante, “The new office provides a comfortable workplace for our employees and an attractive second showroom within our U.S. headquarters. The design team did a tremendous job representing Lavazza’s global branding within the new space.”
“Our project team took Lavazza’s branding, material, and design standards, developed in Italy by our colleagues at Studio aCd Architetti, and then executed these ideas to create a European-flavored, high-energy office with open collaborative office layout for the Lavazza headquarters, a showroom, and social spaces that offer breathtaking views of New York City and surrounding waterways,” said Steven Andersen, Principal of MDA’s interior design affiliate Montroy Andersen DeMarco (MADGI).
The project’s goals included creating a striking 350-square foot showroom space that would be appealing to US customers and employees, while following Lavazza’s global design standards. The client’s functional requirements also included creating administrative areas for the firm’s accounting and IT department.
“We assisted Lavazza from the preliminary planning phase through completion of construction for this newly leased, full-floor space for their headquarters that takes advantage of the panoramic views of the East River, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New York Harbor. The floor plan of the new section includes the central elevator core with a private elevator landing, a 450-square foot conference room/classroom, open plan offices, a showroom to display coffee brewing equipment, an employee social and gaming area, pantry, and glazed front-equipped offices of the CFO and senior accounting personnel. The finishes include a combination of hardwood oak and ash mambo floors and modern residential-style cabinetry that reflect Lavazza’s global standards,” added MDA Project Manager Ajay Waghmare.
The showroom features a white polyurethane-finish display table for countertop coffee-making equipment and promotional items; hardwood floor in natural color; a narrow, white high counter table with bar stools in white and clear plastic; Lavazza-branded wall art depicting coffee plants and processing; and expansive windows. The custom display table includes coffee pod pockets that spell out a portion of the Lavazza name, and whimsical table legs of different materials and colors. The employee break room, adjacent to the showroom, houses a foosball table, a rocking S.3 armchair by Felicerossi, and a Tolomeo Mega floor lamp by Artemide.
High Sound Transmission Class (STC)-rated Faram D-900 glazed wall system with custom film with etched Lavazza branding and geometric graphics separates the employee break room, CFO’s office, senior accounting personnel office, and large team room are separated from the elevator lobby and hallway on the eastern side of the floor. Custom millwork cabinetry, meeting room furniture, and workstations with lacquer finish throughout the space are by UniFor; noise mitigating cloud ceilings are by Ecophon Saint-Gobain; hardwood flooring is by Preverco; and linear and circular LED lighting is by Artemide.
The conference room is intended mainly for employee meetings, classes, and videoconferencing. This space features a movable white table; white plastic chairs; red leather armchairs with swinging side tables for coffee tasting; built-in display shelves to showcase coffee-related products; white storage cabinetry; and a large three-dimensional wooden cut-out Lavazza logo wall relief. The espresso-stained hardwood floor features a lighter, natural wood-colored perimeter border.
The 1,400-square foot open plan office section housing accounting and IT personnel, along with the employee pantry, are located on the west side of the floor plate. The open plan office features white and red workstations, a perimeter counter with red storage shelves underneath, extensive storage consisting of white built-in cabinets installed along the building’s core and smaller freestanding storage units utilized to visually separate IT and accounting departments, hardwood floor in contrasting natural wood and espresso colors, white Ecophone cloud ceilings, linear LED lighting fixtures, and coffee-themed wall graphics.
A Faram glazed wall with etched film separates the pantry from the open office area. The pantry houses a dining table with chairs, a countertop with a sink and a coffee maker, and a refrigerator. It features natural colored hardwood flooring, white cabinetry, wall graphics, and a TV monitor.
The MDA design team successfully collaborated with the Italian counterparts to address various design challenges that were presented during construction. For example, the Gallarate, Italy-based furniture and glass partition supplier Officenter’s personnel visited the construction site to confirm all space measurements prior to fabricating the cabinetry in Europe, to ensure all fixtures fit perfectly once delivered and assembled in New York.
Numerous coffee machines displayed in the showroom have to be operational and connected to power, water, and a drainage system. The builders installed special Nema 5 and Nema 6 electrical outlets to provide power. Due to an impediment on the floor below, a drain for showroom could not be connected to the building’s drainage system directly in the showroom space. The plumbing system was reengineered to include an ejector pump to discard water and coffee grounds from the coffee machines to the building’s drain 15 feet away.
In addition to MDA and Isidoro Mastronardi’s Studio aCd Architetti, the project team included general contractor JRM Construction Management; mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineer MG Engineering; and furnishing and glass partition supplier Officenter (Gallarate, Italy).
