D-ORBIT Headquarters

As outer space becomes an increasingly relevant entrepreneurial area, D-Orbit - an Italian firm working in the aerospace industry, which targets the ever more worrisome issue of space debris - became an international pioneer in the field of geostationary satellites decommissioning. The increasing size of the firm asked for larger working spaces and landed to the identification of a former 3’000sqm warehouse as a new headquarter. Being the production chain of D-Orbit based on three fundamental steps: design, prototyping and making, the design developed according to this sequence. A simple and open space spreads around the clean room, the space where production happens, and where D-Orbit devices are jealously guarded. The white room is something that contains a device thought for an ‘extra-terrestrial’ use. That belongs to another environment, devoid of weight, withextreme light and temperatures, where not even time flows as the same pace as down on earth. The clean room - the pivot of the architectural composition –therefore contains something ‘otherworldly’ and becomes the Sancta sanctorum, the temple, where those entering have to undergo a sort of “clothing ritual”. The new D-Orbit headquarters are a sort of introverted landscape is made of large lofty spaces where, just like in an outdoor space, vertical elements, such as lighting devices and furniture make itsoverall spatial quality.