Working in an open plaza, designed to nurture spontaneous interactions among people: this is the idea of CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati for the new Open Innovation Center of the Sella Group in Turin, Italy.
Starting from the renovation of a historic building in Turin, the project reimagines office spaces as fluid environments for collaboration. The conventional setup of the office gives way to something that resembles a “piazza” – recalling the vibrant squares as a center of the Italian public life – where spontaneous interactions and idea generation take center stage.
The Sella Open Innovation Center focuses on the workplace at a pace that can foster organic connections and unplanned interactions. The project takes inspiration from the office as an urban playground, a dynamic plaza that allows ideas to move freely through shared areas. Communal zones are designed to suggest a new way of working, stimulating encounters while offering varying degrees of privacy to accommodate different modes of work.
Situated in Turin’s central Crocetta district, the Open Innovation Center spans 5,500 square meters (around 60,000 square feet) and acts as a hub integrating all the Group’s specialized consulting skills in its various business areas with the aim of developing innovation to generate a positive social, economic, environmental and regional impact.
The design incorporates features such as an agora for events, flexible workstations, and terraced meeting pods, allowing workspaces to be shared adaptively throughout the day. Informal creative work areas are provided on each floor equipped with open seating and workbenches.
The building also incorporates an advanced air exchange system and environmental climate control, based on a distributed “smart skin” approach which does not require traditional air treatment. A network of sensors activates optimal automated responses under all conditions of usage. This design feature underscores the project’s commitment to energy efficiency.
“We believe that physical spaces will continue to play a crucial role in catalyzing innovation” says Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, currently Curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2025. “In this project for Sella Group, we imagined a building as a series of plazas to emphasize the importance of shared workspaces where the ‘weak ties’ initially theorized by professor Mark Granovetter could naturally emerge. These are impromptu, casual connections that provide access to new information and opportunities, which are indispensable for generating new ideas and strengthening company culture.”
