Moroccan roots and Milanese sensitivity meet in the new Safira Milano flagship store, designed by Flaviano Capriotti Architetti focusing on a constant interaction among light, colour and memories.
The concept of the space, located in Corso Venezia in Milan, is based on four elements – light, earth, wood and yellow – able to evoke atmospheres, territories and traditions.
The light, warm and scattered, recalls the skies of North Africa and is reinterpreted through an accurate lighting design, which enhances every material aspect of the space.
The earth is represented in the project by the irregular walls built with the innovative Ricehouse plaster, based on rice husk: a waste material turned into a sustainable resource that reduces indoor pollution and evokes the typical Moroccan architecture made of rammed earth.
Even the solid elm wood, chosen for the floors and the decorative profiles, is an alive, warm and authentic material, which lasts over time and combines the Italian craftsmanship with the Moroccan one.
This visual and sensory storytelling is completed by the colour yellow, a vibrant and solar tone that represents Safira Milano’s visual identity. The deep yellow, blending into orange, evokes the energy and light of the Mediterranean Sea and interacts harmoniously with the other natural materials of the project.
One architectural gesture in particular gives the project further symbolic strength: the restoration and reopening of a big original arch in the 19th century building that hosts the boutique. The structural element, hidden by layers of false walls and false ceilings, is once again the main attraction of this area: a bridge between the past and the present, between architectural legacy and contemporary design.
Every element, from the tailor-made furniture to the light that shapes surfaces and from the proportions to the selection of materials, is conceived as a part of a coherent story. For this reason, Capriotti designed some ad hoc spatial and functional devices: burnished stainless steel tubes for clothes rails, backlit recesses for accessories and bags, custom-made shelves and pouffes placed all around in a balanced manner.
The new Safira Milano space thus becomes a place that conveys a feeling of home, roots and future, where architecture, design and identity melt to give shape to a contemporary vision.
