Kokaistudiosconsists of a company first created by Italian architects Filippo Gabbiani & Andrea Destefanis in 2000, which would later evolve with the creation of a Shanghai office in 2002.
This is the perfect example of a truly multicultural firm that has managed to establish a global presence with a series of projects in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America.
Located on one of Shanghai’s one of the most beautiful historical streets in a 19th-century building that overlooks an urban oasis of traditional Chinese gardens, their office stands as a physical testament to one of Kokaistudios’ core beliefs and areas of practice.
“My work gives me the possibility to observe the world by different and unusual perspectives revealing the hidden chances to solve problems in innovative ways.”
Their mission is to create spaces and experiences that make the life of people better. Every project they do from private to public, from interiors to architecture is always focused to create empathy between people and the environment.
They feel extremely gratified observing how people interact and establish a strong empathy with their projects.
Kokaistudios believes that it doesn’t exist an architect that has achieved everything they wanted in life. For them, the spirit of adventure and the creative lymph never take rest.
Primarily focused on developing cultural, corporate, commercial, hospitality and retail projects they have also worked extensively on urban regeneration projects involving the requalification of heritage locations. They don’t have a style, in fact, they always avoid to repeat or reuse formal solutions.
As a firm active in many fields of design, they have attracted a multi-cultural group of passionate and talented architects and designers who are all “thinking minds” that work together to drive the creation of innovative projects.
They are very committed to a continuous and straight forward open discussion with clients, audience and most of all final users both in academic or social lifestyle environments.
Since their design approach is quite different from the standard professional and technical ones they use a multimedia narrative way to disclose the dynamics and the entire creative process revealing the most “intimate” and interesting aspects of their work.
According to Kokaistudios, their clients need to be very passionate and visionary about their projects and they need to be open to cooperate together into an original design process with the common target to create something really innovative, focused into the final users’ benefits on long terms.
With the strategic focus on only taking projects where they can fully apply their design vision to create interesting and important projects, they have created a platform for their teams to learn and grow and be at the forefront of the design environment in China while working in a supportive and friendly environment.
Kokaistudios is currently working on a large number of projects worldwide: from the definition of new innovative lifestyle commercial and mix-use projects reconnected to the cities where they are located to sophisticated tailor-made hospitality products. They are very active also in the creation of an innovative retail concept that can adapt to the fast-changing markets and society demands.
“With our original Italian background, the culture of craftsmanship is deeply bounded with our design practice. We have been committed for a long time to promote and reinvent the use of traditional techniques into a contemporary use and we will continue to explore the incredible possibilities that the tradition and the art of doing things well gave us.”
When it comes to the future of design, the studio would like to see the design to become really a service to the society, considering the real different needs that each different environment express.
Kokaistudios would like to see the architects and designers avoiding a flattening process of design approach caused by the use of standard visual references and the globalisation of the international markets.
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