We spoke with Juan Salgado, Lead Designer of Workplace Spain and Matías Rodríguez, Head of Strategy & Special Projects, from Studio Banana.
Studio Banana is the home of design-driven transformation. Its team uses co-creation processes, placing the user at the center and thus creating impact in the organizations that bet on its methodology.
Many months ago, LOOM decided to collaborate with Studio Banana to face a great challenge, to create a new space and a new community in the first LOOM in Barcelona: LOOM Glòries.
Both organizations have great similarities in terms of philosophy and values; we focus on collaboration, connection, and user wellbeing.
Do you want to know the keys to this great collaboration between Studio Banana & LOOM? Then keep reading the interview:
How would you describe Studio Banana so that people who have not yet heard of you understand the concept and what makes you different?
We like to define ourselves as a studio that generates innovation and transformation through the design of spaces, services, objects and experiences.
Our origin gives us the DNA of collaboration and connecting diverse minds to face this project together, it is something that we have very marked in our philosophy.
We bet a lot on co-creation, so that at the end of the journey we can design a new product or space as we are doing with you.
Once Studio Banana has been presented, let’s get down to business… How have you approached the LOOM Glòries project?
We started with a phase of discovery and design, doing research on how the market is and what the competition is in order to differentiate ourselves and make a bespoke design, ad hoc to your needs and those of the loomers.
We focus on a study based on:
- The user profile that would come to LOOM Glòries: a very aspirational target and in a new geographical area, with all the challenges that entails.
- And the conditioning factor of the design of the space itself, a circular space.
These two components, which have gradually been overlapping layers, together with the conclusion of this discovery phase, we landed them in a co-creation session.
All this research and its conditioning factors guided us in the conceptualization and provided the drivers to follow in the development of the spatial strategy, the look and feel and the selection of materials.
What has been the biggest challenge?
Overcoming the spatial limitations of being a tower, making the circulation vertical. And another great challenge has been to have a central point that cannot be crossed; it is already a spatial condition that will not change.
What positive aspects has the Glòries Tower offered you?
LOOM Glòries is a super iconic space, it is like a lighthouse that can serve almost as a metaphorical guide: what is powerful is happening inside the tower, but it is also happening outside. The viewpoint area is very representative, and we believe it will be one of the most sought-after areas of the tower.
What other spaces or works have inspired you?
A very clear inspiration has been listening to the users that have come into contact with our work processes. That is to say, we are not the typical design studio that locks itself in an ivory tower and comes out with a wonderful disruptive idea. We have a more scientific and methodical approach that has to do with research and listening.
We had the possibility of interviewing the current users of the tower. People who could be representative of who is that digital nomad that we want to address in the future. Empathizing with their expectations and needs has helped us a lot in defining an experience beyond the spatial.
We wanted to see the journey they are going to have inside the tower: from when they arrive in the morning, until they leave in the late afternoon. And then the interactions of the different users both interpersonally and interdepartmentally. Taking into account the different profiles that will coexist in LOOM Glòries. More than an inspiration, it is a listening exercise.
LOOM Glòries, is a flexible space located in one of the most enigmatic towers of Barcelona, which has a careful design to the smallest detail. And that is looking forward to hosting a great innovative community full of talent. Be part of LOOM’s transformation!
