Reflecting fountain – Arneg, Campo San Martino (Padua, Italy)

Arneg Group is a leader in Italy and abroad in the field of refrigeration dedicated to retail. The use and development of smart technology applied to the refrigerator sector make Arneg as a leading reality, hence the need for a research hub that expresses the corporate vision. The headquarter is located in Campo San Martino (Padua, Italy), the beating heart where the design part is developed. For the creation of the new technological hub, the company commissioned the Milan Polytechnic to carry out the study and design of the work and the research of spaces for "the optimization of the research, development, and creation process of new products". Architect Barbara Bogoni, the scientific manager of the project, supervised the realization of the building together with the arch. Francesco Cancelliere. Forme d’Acqua Venice Fountains took part in this innovative project with the realization of an exterior big floor-level fountain, a rectangular pool adjoining the main building, 50 meters in length and 20 meters wide. A green lawn space surrounds the building and some trees create a backdrop. The suggestive reflecting power is expressed at different times of the day. The surface reflects the row of high fastigiate cypresses and gives the viewer the impression of being on the shores of a lake. The body of water represents an attractive element even from inside the building: the large windows next to the pool are a visual escape that arouses reconnection and positive sensations with the external environment, relaxation for the eyes, and a moment of contemplative pause. The big rectangular pool and its edges are covered with slate-colored, which arouses the reflecting power of water, only 2,5 cm deep. The roof of the corporate building is of the same color chosen for the pool floor and - together with the long window that runs along the expanse - creates a superimposition of dark rectangular shapes, interesting references, and architectural games. The MEP design of the fountain has given life to creation with a minimal design that contains the technology that allows the continuous recirculation of clean water. The water flows through a filtration and recirculation system, while in the bottom of the pool, there are built-in nozzles made to measure in AISI316 stainless steel powder coated in black to give chromatic continuity to the creation. A double-dosing pump for automatic acidification and chlorination with a control probe allows automatic water replenishment and remote management.

“It’s our duty as designers to choose and to build the spatialities for human life, which, in a general sense, live and work in the world. The working activity is an active complex and protracted in time, sometimes beyond the eight-hour day shift, related to emergencies or needs, and it deserve special attention, a special project,which not only defines areas equipped with the necessary for its execution. It also needs volumes of atmospheres more or less dense with internal forces, connections, dynamisms (perceptive, visual, tactile, and physical) and beauty (of the internal environment and of the external environment). In this latter aspect, water, together with natural light and vegetation, plays a strategic, fundamental role: the reflection of light and colours, the projection, mirroring, rippling, flowing are minimal actions on which the eye rests and from which it receives well-being. All of the above leads back to beauty, of which water transports and transforms every detail.”

Arch. Barbara Bogoni e Arch. Francesco Cancelliere, Milan Polytechnic