Estudio DIIR is an architectural office based in Madrid and founded in 2018 by David Meana, Ignacio Navarro, Iñigo Palazón and Ricardo Fernández, architects graduated from the Technical University of Madrid (ETSAM). Their work tackles multiscale projects and explores various paths to achieve uniqueness through innovation and rigor. From public buildings, residential complexes and single-family homes to commercial projects such as stores, restaurants and offices, estudio DIIR incorporates the essential aspects of the present, focusing on social, cultural and environmental issues.

Course Brief

Estudio DIIR’s vision of the future defends a practice committed to technology development. Advances in construction field, in environmental matters and, above all, in sustainability, give their work an experimental and innovative value. They pursue these motivations always ensuring the greatest precision according to the need. The exhaustive control of each phase, the attention to every detail and the search for excellence are the principles that define their rigorous and professional work ethic. Yinjispace invites Iñigo Palazón, one of the founders, to share their design experience under the theme of ‘Design Strategies for Commercial Spaces’ at 8:00pm on December 8.

Estudio DIIR think that the fundamental key to turning a commercial space into something successful is based on the need to create a trident of interaction between consumer, product and space. Without a product there is no buyer and without a buyer there is no product. The mission is to place both at the same level of hierarchy. The office is defined as a collaborative platform where professional and intellectual activity is developed through the interaction of numerous agents. Estudio DIIR organizes its work in four areas: conceptualization of ideas, project development, work execution and communication. Depending on the need, the working group incorporates those agents who offer their knowledge and provide the project with greater richness. This makes possible to approach different project scales with ambition and guarantees. 

Yinjispace invites Iñigo Palazón, one of the founders, to share their design experience under the theme of ‘Design Strategies for Commercial Spaces’. Iñigo Palazón mentions three ideas of the studio: the first are uniqueness, creativity and rigour; the second is the development of projects; and the third is the multidisciplinary team. They are equipped with flexibility and agility through these aspects. They regard consumer, space and product as the most important things in commercial behavior. By transforming the brand’s philosophy into materials, textures and colors, they create the suitable space for the brand image. They also Analyze the structures and materials used in the specific cases, like steel frame, bar counter and ceramics skirting board. Through these designers, they expect to combine the public area and the private space.

Yinjispace：Could you summarize the different baseboards for materials?

Estudio DIIR：The constructive details in every project are different. For example, we see in the casa Neutrale that the skirting board is made of ceramics; in the Neutrale project, it is made of fiber material, which has ductility so there is no need for the skirting board; and we usually use a kind of mental board to heighten the skirting level, which seems that the skirting board is disappeared. We use this mental board so the wall won’t reach the floor, but we would still need a skirting board in the project.

Yinjispace：How would you understand the space transition?

Estudio DIIR：This transition comes from two aspects: the first one is the geometric shape of the site. And the transition would be really necessary, there are load-bearing walls and the shapes forced us to divide the space. The second one is we are willing to do the transition. Which is to say, in the project Pau shop, the store has 9 halls, we would give complexity to the project. When we are able to design a much more broader room, we would choose to create spaces with different functions, so the routes is diversified. And the seal experiences happen in smaller spaces, so consumers could have more ambiances.

Yinjispace：How would you deal with the light in commercial space?

Estudio DIIR：I know light is important, especially in the store. It makes the products more desirable. Like what I mention in the dome project, what I am interest in is to display the skylight. In fact, every wall in this round space has a LED light to illuminate the products. Generally, we have normal lights that brighten the whole space, at the same, we would use spotlights or LED lights as the specific illuminants for the products.

Yinjispace：What are the difficult points for you?

Estudio DIIR：There are different kinds of problems in this process. They are not in the first stage, which is the brand identification stage. In the whole process, we communicate with the customer a lot and reach to some point satisfying the needs of both sides. And the real difficulty is before it, and when we develop a series of concepts. 

They are sometimes too experimental, so hard to become a reality. Or they could be really complicated or technically impossible. We have no big problems when solving these projects altogether. But when you turn the concepts and ideas in the beginning into the real world, you have to consider the technology and find some reliable solutions. And the most important thing is, you have to consider the budget, which is always the limitations of our practice. Once you determine the plan, you could see that everything goes well in the site. 

Yinjispace：How does the concept of brand image come out?

Estudio DIIR：Sometimes, designing a store, or more accurately, a brand, the only thing you could refer to is their digital products or their social networks. They are not stable brand that you could find more statistics. So this is complicated. Our studio would have some ideas and think about the material sample that could represent the brand’s quality better. And that’s why we would show our clients different color palettes until they agree with something in them. This is a stage of trial and error. 

We would use what we have and combine them. In this way, the clients would know what we are seeking for. And even something we couldn’t make the clients know at the very beginning, we could reassure them using these tests. Once we determine the palette, we would make the renderings. These pictures visualize the projects. So this is the match, at first materials and then the materials in the picture, so we could persuade the clients of a certain kind.