Color and Transparency in the New Pragma Office, Fano

More than a renovation, it’s a spatial system that rethinks how people work, meet, and move through the offices, according to designer Paleani’s vision.

“When I first entered the space,” says engineer Paolo Paleani, who led the renovation, “I found a long corridor with wooden doors and closed-off partitions — it felt like an old dormitory. I thought: if we want to change how this place works, we can’t keep using closed rooms.”

The design of the Pragma tax and accounting office in Fano stems from this very realization: the original layout was typical of offices from another era, with rooms boxed in by solid walls and no visual connection between spaces. It was a functional setup that had long been outdated, where the natural light from the continuous perimeter windows was broken up and dispersed.

“These days we spend more time at work than at home,” explains Paleani. “So the workplace has to be a place where people feel good, where they can be as comfortable as possible to be productive. In my view, this is the key element in office design.”

The project starts from this principle: spatial quality is no longer just an aesthetic bonus, but a structural component of productivity.

The strategy was clear: remove opaque boundaries and replace them with full-height glass partition walls from the Unica® series, integrated with Quadra storage units. This is not an open space, but a network of transparent cells where each office maintains privacy and acoustic comfort, while sharing a continuous sense of openness across the floor.”

“The main goal was to maximize natural light,” the designer explains. “Being able to see through the glass walls completely changes the visual perception of the space, making it feel much larger.”

The corridor, previously just a passageway, now becomes an active part of the space: the built-in storage units within the partitions structure the route, alternating transparent sections with solid, colored elements.

“Instead of having a completely open and transparent corridor, where you almost feel like a fish in an aquarium,” Paleani explains, “we gave these storage units a distinctive color. By alternating these elements along the corridor, we create chromatic focal points that make the space feel warm, because glass on its own is perceived as a cold material.”

The result is a sequence of distinct moments rather than a monotonous corridor. Transparency is used as a selective tool: visual openness is ensured, while acoustic performance allows for phone calls and meetings without interference.

“It feels like an open space, but with the privacy you need: when you’re in your own room and talking, you don’t disturb others,” the designer explains. “This matters, because in traditional open-plan offices you often get background noise from sound echoing. Here, you feel like you’re working in a shared environment, but you still have the privacy of your own space.”

This creates a contemporary idea of the workspace, where natural light, noise control, the rhythm of solid and transparent elements, and the quality of visual connections are all designed as one integrated system.

“We usually work in teams, right?” Paleani concludes. “A team works when people share, connect, and actually know each other. That’s essential, because without real physical and mental comfort, it’s hard to enjoy your workplace. And since we spend so many hours in the office these days, liking the place where we work isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity.”