A million thanks to everyone who supported us!

bastard store wins the ArchDaily Building of the Year Award

ArchDaily is for sure the most visited Architecture blog out there. On the 10th of May 2009 ArchDaily published a very comprehensive and beautifully edited post about our project bastard store and created a huge link between studiometrico, bastard and the world. That was just the beginning…

On the 18th of January the ArchDaily Building of the Year 2009 Award, an invitation to all readers to select the best projects posted in 2009 according to 13 different categories, was launched. bastard store was selected as ‘eligible’ in 4 categories. But there’s much… much more!

After the first round and thanks to the support of many, bastard store is  now one of the 65 finalists and will be challenging 4 other projects to become the number 1 in the category Interiors!
So… now it’s up to you, friends, lovers, colleagues, clients, visitors, relatives, Facebookers and Twitterers! Vote for us and spread the new if you think that the bastard store deserves the title of ArchDaily Best Building of the Year 2009!

There are still 5 left, but there’ll only be 1 winner…

Pics by Giuliano Berarducci and Beatrice Sugliani

During the weeks that followed ONLYWOOD, some attention was raised on COMVERT HQ. Curious people started to search, ask, talk and write about the project… This is a good thing for studiometrico, Bastard, Atelier LC and specially for Comvert, a fantastic company and an unforgettable client who’s kicking it hard in this ‘supposedly’ difficult moment. The web has been the most generous and reactive among all the media. If you want to know our opinion about the things that have been written…

archinfo.it has made the most complete and interesting article. Carlotta Eco, who’s an architect and a jurnalist, has been as serious as curious. She contacted us to collect all the necessary information, she came to visit, watched people skating and edited an article that we fully appreciate.

lospremiagrumi.com has probably been the quickest blog to ‘post’ us. A couple of days after the opening Tommaso Maggio had already published a short, but very nice article featuring pictures he had taken during the party and a good selection of the images we had made available.

It took a while before domusweb realized what we had done… but the article they have published is defenetly accurate and stylish. It features – perhaps is the first time for an architecture magazine – a real skateboarding photograph and it brought a lot of visits to our blog in the 48 hours we lasted on their hompage!

blogosfere deals with ‘style & fashion’ which is not really our cup of tea… but they were actually very nice, they came to the opening party and were even interested in interviewing us! Unfortunately our performance hasn’t been a memorable one.

internimagazine just published a nice photograph and wrote few words, but that’s basically what they usually do, so we are happy anyway…

la repubblica was the only newspaper that even printed something about us. The article actually focuses on skateboarding as a youth phenomenon and presents a photograph of Bastard bowl under construction, but doesn’t mention studiometrico at all. Anyway it was because their article that The Godfather came to knock on our door, so we are thankful.

kishirikiblog and inoda-sveje are japanese blogs, so we don’t have a clue what they’re saying… apparently they just talk about the party and forget to put even a small link to our blog, perhaps they just want to look cool in japan but… hello! we’d like that too…

blog.bastard.it is run by the guys at bastard and is about skateboarding and street culture. This blog is by far the biggest source of web visits for us. They support us, they never forget to give credits to people and they are our mates, we love them!

la voce is an independent newspaper that has given voice and credits to us. Unfortunately they didn’t seem too interested in the photographs, but they might be more into words, so what they wrote is accurate and precise.

Giuliano Berarducci, who’s a skateboarding photographer (and is shooting COMVERT HQ for us) has been interviewed on the affiliate skateboard company website. The article is very cool, Giuliano talks about his work in the U.S. and claims COMVERT HQ is ‘the hot thing right now in Milan’. We just have to believe him.

Current is a web tv. It’s  ‘about what’s going on in your world: all the things you and your friends are actually interested in that you won’t find on any other news site or cable TV channel.‘ Usethemind came to the COMVERT HQ grand opening party with his video camera, but found us all too drunk to give interviews… Therefore he showed up on a more sober afternoon and produced this small video that made our mothers very proud and happy…

Last (but not least) Abitare – the Italian Magazine that everyone (even not architect) has read once – found out about our project and turned its spotlights on us for a little while !

Only 48 hours after the successful ONLYWOOD (the COMVERT Headquarter Grand Opening Party) we went back to Casacomvert for the first skate-session after the completion of the Bastard Bowl, the first skateable spaceship ever landed on earth. It was not surprising to find out that there was a martian skating upthere!

Here few amatorial pics we shoot of Daniel Cardone:

Find out more about this project here.

Few months after their move into their new home, Those Lazy Italians at Bastard, with the help and guidance of Marco Clozza (a.k.a. The Engineer), are eventually busy with the construction of the Bastard Bowl, their spectacular and hazardous ultimate recreative device. Daily updates of the construction works are available here.

See also previous posts about this project:

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan | 2

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan | 3

Casacomvert!

We are finally able to post an ‘almost’ complete set of pictures and drawings concerning a project that has kept us busy for more than one year: The new home of Comvert s.r.l, the italian clothing company that produces and distributes Bastard. Few years ago Comvert asked studiometrico to look for a location for its new headquarter in Milan; the place should have been large enough to host offices for 15-20 people, services, a big storage for their products and an indoor skatebowl for employees, team riders and friends. In spring 2005 we eventually found a Cinema theater from the 50′s that really suited Comvert needs and few months ago – after the conclusion of the refurbishment works – the company has moved into its new home: Casacomvert!

Conceptual diagrams

We have tried to establish few principles that could help us to deal with the existing space: the cinema theater designed by Ing. Mario Cavallé has been perceived as something to preserve, a valuable example in a city like Milan that has apparently forgotten how to produce ‘good architecture’. The following diagrams are a brief attempt to establish basic rules to add new layers within the existing environment without overwriting it, our 5 rules to avoid succumbing to architecture.

Ground floor plan

On the ground level plan – the former foyer of the cinema – constituted by a regular square room facing the street – will be turned into the first bastard flagship store. The ‘half-moon’ shaped space, flanked by two curved staircases leading to the upper balcony, has been transformed into offices for the administrative department. Through this joint element is possible to enter the space of the former pit, now occupied by the two storey metal structure of the storage. Few service spaces, toilets, kitchen, an archive, an enclosed office, and an access courtyard complete the ground floor layout.

Longitudinal section

This schematic longitudinal section shows in a sequence from left to right: the bastard store and the administrative department in the spaces of the former foyer, the creative department built on top of the balcony, the storage that occupies the area of the old pit and, on top of it, the skate bowl that is going to be built in the first one or two months of 2008.

Upper floor plan

The upper level plan shows the creative department built as a number of wooden platforms of different height on the existing balcony and the 144 sqm skate bowl that is going to be installed above the storage structure.

Constructive diagrams

The following Diagrams explain the constructive system of the platforms that constitute the office spaces of the creative department.

• Steel columns have been placed on the concrete bearing structure of the balcony
• Horizontal steel beams have been welded to the vertical columns
• Wooden beams and osb panels have been bolted on the horizontal beams
• 3-layered wooden panles have been placed to clad the platforms and to create furnished banisters.

Maquette of creative department

The office spaces above the existing balcony have been conceived and developed with a 1:50 scale cardboard maquette. The actual design, which is described by the previous diagrams, is eventually different from the one described by the maquette. The final version has been infact adjusted and re-organized on the existing structure of the balcony. The main reason is that the full comprehension of the bearing structure of the balcony was only possible as demolition works started.

Pictures of the buidling site

The following pictures are a selection of the ones we have been shooting during our visits to the building site. The first sequence of photographs focuses on the construction of the creative department platforms, which has been the most challenging and exciting part of the project.

The administrative department offices on the ground floor have been realized with same materials and similar constructive principle. On the slightly sloping marble floor of the foyer we have added another wooden platform that could leave the existing pavement untuched, provide a flat surface and host electrical installations.

Pictures of the ‘squatted’ headquarters

At the end of the summer Comvert has eventually managed to move in its new home! Nevertheless the project is not completely finished… The bastard store and the bastard bowl will come very soon and we are still working on a good deal of finishings, furnitures and details. We are therefore not really able (but then again, shall we ever be?..) to show jet those slick pictures that you often see on architecture magazines where everything is clean, neat and into place… Comvert staff was just too eager to take control of their new headquarters and… they did!

see also previous posts about this project:

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan | 2

Refurbishing a Cinema theater in Milan | 3

Building Bastard Bowl

related links:

Refurbishing a cinema theater in milan

Refurbishing a cinema theater in milan | 2

[pic by: Nicolò Dragoni]

[pics by: Nicolò Dragoni]

[source: Mario Cavallé, Tecnica delle costruzioni di Cinema e Teatri, Gorlich Editore, Milano 1958]