Pizzicarola Store / Supervoid

Pizzicarola Store / Supervoid

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Text description provided by the architects. Pizzicarola is a new grocery store that opened at the beginning of 2022 in the Monteverde district of Rome. Created to respond to the changing needs related to the purchase and experience of food in the post-pandemic reality, the store intends to redefine a consolidated typology, expanding the possibilities of social and symbolic interaction between customers, space, and products.

The commercial space opens to the street through two large windows, framed within a metal grid. The metal grid panels continue inside and define the perimeter of the space, completely covering it. The metal grid becomes a wall cladding, a piece of furniture, a chandelier, giving the space its distinctive character and building the infrastructure of the modular display system that develops along the walls, completely freeing the interior space of the store.

At the center of the space is a long 300x70cm folded sheet metal table, flanked by four mobile benches. During the day these elements are used as counters for the display of fruit and vegetables, while in the evening, once the sales hours are over and the furniture is freed from the goods, they regain their function as seats and social tables and are used for aperitifs, tastings or courses.

The widespread use of industrial materials such as stainless steel, gratings, colored PVC curtains is a reference and homage to the technical world of food production, rather than to the established aesthetics of conventional places of consumption. On the other hand, the strong connection with the street, the inclined metal “curtain” above the refrigerator display case, the mobile tables are elements that recall the idea of the market. The project, therefore, works on ambiguous and “double-functioning” elements such as the covering/display system or the table/counter, which correspond to the hybridization of the functions and modes of using the space.