Prima Café

Park Associati creates the concept for an original hybrid space in the heart of Milan for the tech company Prima.it.

Designed to accompany the life of customers and the neighbourhood from morning till night, Prima Café is not meant to be a showcase of the client's main activity in the insurance field, rather a place encapsulating different functions, from actual café, to bistro, from restaurant to cocktail bar.

But the requirement that needed to be fulfilled did not just relate to food consumption or entertainment. Increasingly, private life, social life and work converge on a single container; venues are therefore conforming to this trend by becoming extensions of private homes and offices, with an added component of relational exchange.

Park Associati's interior design of the approximately 200-square-metre premises creates an informal, flexible technological environment. Inspired by the art and flamboyance that characterise the great events of rock music, the environment’s colour and light change following the rhythm of day and evening hours. A single large space illuminated by floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street and the square opposite the entrance, accommodates a bar and a restaurant. Conceived as three-dimensional spaces, all the walls feature a double finish pleated ribbon of kinetic art inspiration composed of juxtaposed triangular-section prismatic panels in recurring variations of shading ranging from purple to a precious burnished mirror effect.

The resin floor's broken-line design creates backgrounds that are treated with two different surface finishes. The resin's blue colour thus takes on effects ranging from glossy to opaque, alternated with the glittering line of the brass profile.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this space, the lighting project is also designed to create different atmospheres according to the hours of the day. A highly technological lighting system comprising 600 transparent reflective tubes lit by LED projectors creates a spectacular light wave on the premises' entire ceiling that is reminiscent of Neon Art works and the stage set of some historic rock concerts. The intensity and colour of the light are programmed to change over time: clear and discreet during the day, warm and intense in the evening, they follow the principles of the circadian rhythm, the light reflecting the human biological clock to ensure maximum well-being.

The cool blue and purple shades interact perfectly with the raw iron tables and the bronze finishes of the room, which features a comfortable decor with furnishings of different shapes and size of a vaguely vintage character.

Prima Cafè is also designed as a place where private events can be organised and where people can stop and work between appointments. Focusing on the fluid identity that accompanies the premises' metamorphoses, the interior design creates a hybrid environment where the function-aesthetics combination is overturned.