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LIVING WELLNESS M
Kate Cracknell pays a visit to Technogym’s brand new headquarters – the Wellness Village – in Cesena, Italy
any companies talk of corporate wellness initiatives for their employees; few have a
wellness philosophy that visibly oozes from every pore of their headquarters. But that’s precisely what has been achieved at the new Technogym Village in Cesena, Italy, which was officially opened in September 2012. “We wanted to create a place that
would inspire the industry about wellness,” says Technogym founder and president Nerio Alessandri. “Wellness is not a concrete product. It’s an experience, and in order to understand it, you need to live it. Wellness is made of design, technology, content, social relations, people. We wanted to create a destination where our customers, our partners and all the industry stakeholders could come and understand our vision by experiencing it for themselves – where we can both listen to and inspire people, and with that contribute to the future of our industry.” The new development, a long-time dream of Alessandri, creates one single
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‘home’ for Technogym, encompassing administration, a large research and innovation centre – the R&D team is 200-strong – the training capacity of the Wellness University, product showrooms, production, warehousing, a large wellness centre and a staff restaurant. “Over the last 28 years, the company
has grown very fast, spreading beyond our original headquarters to new venues. By 2011, our operations were spread across 14 different locations,” says Alessandri. “In creating the Technogym Village, we’ve consolidated all our operations, logistics and management, allowing us to be quicker, more effi cient and to reduce costs, meaning more innovative products at more competitive prices.”
WELLNESS ON THE GO Walking around the 60,000sq m development, designed by architects Antonio Citterio, Patricia Viel and Partners and set within 150,000sq m of land, there’s an immediate sense of calm, with the buildings very much seeming to belong in their surroundings. The choice of materials
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used throughout – wood, glass, aluminium – has created a highly sustainable building which, while huge in its footprint, has a sympathetic design that curves gently through the landscaped gardens. Not only that, but the whole building has also been designed to embrace its environment in the way it operates. In the morning, the sun rises at one side of the Village, and as it tracks over the buildings, sensor-operated windows and blinds automatically respond: windows open where necessary to maintain heat and airfl ow, while blinds automatically lower if the sun is strong, ensuring light remains at a constant level in the offi ce space. The idea is to create the ideal working environment – in terms of light, temperature, air quality, humidity and so on – by using nature, rather than having to rely heavily on heating or air conditioning. The wellness philosophy is immediately
apparent as you enter the offi ces – starting with the lack of chairs. Every desk, and most of the meeting rooms, are equipped with fabric Swiss ball-style ‘wellness balls’. These carry a QR code
January 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
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