Awarded the 2025 Maestri Comacini Prize in the category of Restoration and Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings, QuadroDesign HQ – Cabina presents a thoughtful, calibrated intervention that resists spectacle while honoring material clarity and programmatic ambiguity. Designed by studio wok, the project reimagines a disused electrical cabin within the grounds of QuadroDesign’s headquarters in San Maurizio d’Opaglio, offering a model for how small-scale architecture can create expansive possibilities.
AWARDS
The commission followed an earlier collaboration in 2022, when studio wok was tasked with renovating the company’s offices and showroom. The second phase extended the vision beyond interiors, into the landscape and a forgotten outbuilding. What emerged is a constellation of three programmatic elements: the cabin, a galvanized steel pergola, and a semi-sunken pool, all sitting atop a concrete plateau that acts as a kind of shared stage.
The cabin itself, with its awkward original form and narrow footprint, is approached not as a remnant to be concealed but as a structure to be re-read. Sliding metal frames dissolve the boundary between inside and out, while a minimal interior program, kitchen, bathroom, open ground floor, supports uses ranging from artist residency to informal gathering space. Two mezzanines, connected via a folded metal stair system, articulate verticality: one in raw wood provides a potential sleeping area; the other reclaims a pre-existing concrete slab, offering a quieter perch beneath a skylight.
Throughout the cabin, materials are left largely untreated, their natural tones accentuated by ample daylight. The architecture avoids ornamentation in favor of precision. This logic continues into the pergola, composed of evenly spaced galvanized steel tubes. Under its lightweight corrugated roof sits a custom kitchen counter rendered in anthracite stone and sheet metal, echoing the language of the nearby pool, a monolithic basin that also functions as communal seating.
The result is an environment defined less by fixed use than by possibility and presence. The design allows for hospitality, reflection, or pause, without dictating how any moment should unfold. It reflects both the Magistro family’s evolving vision for QuadroDesign and studio wok’s ability to frame architecture as quiet infrastructure for everyday life.
By honoring the integrity of the site while proposing subtle but transformative gestures, QuadroDesign HQ – Cabina exemplifies the award’s criteria: a seamless alignment between client, designer, and craftsmanship. Presented on June 13 at Como’s iconic Casa del Fascio, the project stands as a reminder that architecture’s most resonant work often happens on a restrained, human scale.
