Through the window, beyond

If we asked Alfred Hitchcock for his idea of a window, he would probably focus less on aesthetics and more on perception. In “Rear Window” (1954) the window becomes a narrative threshold: it tells of the obsession with looking out, and the illusion that life is always more interesting on the other side of the glass.

And how much time do we spend looking out of the window? A universal gesture, full of breath and freedom, that we perform to carve out a moment of pause and escape. The window, in the office as at home, is not just a fixture: it is an emotional command, our own Ctrl+Alt+View. A tool that changes the way we work, think and even perceive ourselves.

Looking out as mental training

The point is that gazing outside interrupts the spiral of multitasking and opens up a new mental space. Neuroscience confirms it: looking out lowers cortisol levels, stimulates lateral creativity, and reduces the perception of stress. It’s not a whim, it’s biochemistry. Unsurprisingly, companies that invest in panoramic offices report better engagement and performance.

From the corner office to the basement

But not all windows are equal. We know it: some look out onto postcard-perfect skylines, others onto car parks or concrete walls. Yet the brain still plays its part. Any visual link with the outside, even a scraggy tree or a crow on the ledge, works as a reminder that the world goes on beyond the Excel file in front of us. It’s not just about the view, but about the possibility of an horizon, of perceiving the ‘beyond’ (we know, it may sound a bit New Age… but it makes perfect sense).

When the window is missing

And when there are no windows, the eye invents them: a graffiti on the wall, a tropical screensaver, even a brightly lit corridor can become substitute horizons. Do they work? Only up to a point. Without natural light and a visual link to the outside, productivity drops and psychological wellbeing takes a hit. That’s why the issue is not just aesthetic, but design-related: rethinking workplaces also means deciding how and where to open windows.

The window, then, is much more than a view on the world: it is an interface between inside and outside, between focus and escape, between the everyday and the dream. It does not solve all the problems of contemporary work, true. But it remains a fundamental element of our daily wellbeing. For everything else, Hitchcock’s lesson still holds: the outside we observe is only a pretext, because the real scene always takes place inside us.


The Hidden Site

Every architectural project has two faces: the one on show, made of forms and materials, and the one that stays backstage. We’re not talking cranes and hard hats, but that grey area of permits, logistical dovetailing, teams co-existing and the management of the unexpected. It’s the invisible side of building: the part that never appears in the renderings yet decides a project’s fate.

Bureaucracy is not a detail (No, really.)

Forget reinforced concrete: the first real wall is paper. Stamps, authorisations, regulations. Not the most glamorous bit, granted, but without it nothing moves. And ticking boxes isn’t enough: you need to read the system’s fine print, anticipate friction, use the rules of the game as your compass. In other words, the legal backstage is already part of the project.

Logistics: the Tetris no one imagines

A building site isn’t just construction: it’s a choreography of materials, equipment and people. When logistics work, no one notices; when they don’t, everyone remembers. The backstage is an exercise in synchronicity: coordinating suppliers, managing access, keeping to schedules. A less tangible art, but a decisive one.

The unexpected isn’t unexpected

In theory they’re obstacles; in practice, they’re the norm. Delays, supply errors, structural surprises: every site knows them. The difference lies in preparation. Reading complexities early, anticipating criticalities and steering them through to handover is what separates a loosely organised approach from a solid one. We call it Consult – Design – Delivery, and it works because it sequences what usually stays disconnected: we read real requirements and the context’s rules before we draw, we design choices that simplify logistics and reduce snags, and in delivery we coordinate timing, players and surprises under a single direction.

If you’d like to see how Altis keeps the visible and the invisible sides of a project together, write to [email protected]


Open Plan, Closed Minds?

Chairs that swivel, desks without borders, and the promise of endless brainstorming. That’s how the open space was sold: the ultimate solution to make companies more collaborative, dynamic, “cool”. And the reality? The soundtrack is noise, distractions, loud phone calls, and noise-cancelling headphones as the only form of self-defence.

The open space has become the standard, but that doesn’t mean it always works. In fact… often the opposite is true.

The myth of perpetual collaboration

In the 1990s and 2000s, open spaces embodied an almost utopian vision of the office: no walls, no barriers, just colleagues ready to share ideas as if they were sweets. In theory, the formula was simple: more proximity = more collaboration. In practice, more proximity = more coffee breaks and chit-chat. The myth of spontaneous interaction has often turned into a trap: the open plan doesn’t guarantee exchange, but interruptions.

White noise or black noise?

The problem is not just organisational, but cognitive. Every interruption breaks what we might call “attentional cycles”: a recent study from Toggl Blog suggests it takes on average 23 minutes to regain focus after a distraction. Multiply that by ten micro-distractions a day and it’s clear why phone booths have become the status symbol of the open office. The promise of collective energy easily turns into white noise, on a good day, or black noise, the kind that burns time and patience.

Not open vs closed, but plural

The point is not to choose between walls or open spaces. The issue is more subtle: designing environments that respect people’s different cognitive and emotional registers. Some need isolation to concentrate, others thrive on sharing to generate ideas, others on movement to find energy.

This is where our approach, Emotion Based Working, comes in: reading and designing spaces starting from the emotions they must sustain, not from the architectural dogma of the moment. There is no single model, but an ecosystem of possibilities. Closed rooms, hybrid areas, private corners, fluid zones: the real office is not a spatial dogma, but a set of conscious choices.

Do we want to admit it or not?

The open space was the symbol of an era, probably over. Working well today means creating environments that know when to open and when to close. Because in the end, true collaboration goes far beyond desk layouts: it is born from the design of a space that respects different ways of thinking and working.

And if this topic intrigues you, write to us at [email protected]. we promise a conversation more stimulating than an improvised brainstorming session at the coffee machine.


Are you ready for a new era of work?

September: the month of new beginnings, and the perfect time to put a well-worn concept back under the microscope, Activity Based Working (ABW). Flexible, inspiring, motivating… on paper. But what happens today, in a landscape of hybrid realities and generations who approach work in an increasingly subjective and emancipated way? 

You may have noticed it too: a few cracks are showing. And since, as the saying goes, “three clues make a proof,” we’ve pulled out three key data points from Altis’ Proprietary Research that show why it’s time to rethink the model as we know it.

First clue: from flexibility to fragmentation

ABW was born with a promise: more freedom, fewer fixed desks, more collaboration. Yet the post-pandemic reality has handed us a paradox: 55% of Gen Z say they feel lonely or struggle to build social relationships (McKinsey). If the office fails to act as a human glue, flexibility risks turning into fragmentation, because more freedom doesn’t automatically mean more wellbeing.

Second clue: productivity, but only up to a point

Studies on ABW show gains in physical activity and satisfaction, but also small dips in productivity. We move more, we feel better… but do we really work better? It’s the classic trade-off: the environment encourages interaction and movement, but without a design calibrated on people, it risks slowing processes instead of speeding them up.

Third clue: ROI is no longer just about real estate

For years ABW was adopted to cut workstations and optimise square metres. Today, however, ROI means looking beyond occupancy: mental health, engagement, the quality of interactions. In a hybrid world, the true value of space isn’t “how many desks you save,” but “how many connections you generate.”

The proof: taking a step forward with EBW

This is why at Altis we talk about Emotion Based Working. Not just a catchy acronym, but a solid approach rooted in both data and people. At its core lies our Proprietary Research, which explores the relationship between space and behaviour, investigating how the physical environment influences emotional states and social dynamics inside the workplace. This way, every project is grounded in scientific evidence and a true understanding of how space can improve both wellbeing and productivity.

Because today’s work is shaped more by emotions than by mere activity. And it’s time to design places that reflect this reality, without nostalgia for old models, and with one key insight in mind: the next “upgrade” in work won’t be purely technological, but emotional.

The rest of the story? Write to us at [email protected]. We’ll tell you more.


When architecture stops pleasing us

We’re used to thinking of space as a loyal ally: it welcomes you, protects you, makes life easier. That’s the dominant narrative of contemporary architecture: “user-friendly” and “human-centred.” But what if it isn’t? What if architecture is also full of limits, constraints and compromises? 

And it’s often there that creativity finds its way through.

Space is not our servant

We’ve asked buildings to become ever more accommodating: quiet when we need concentration, flexible when we need collaboration, even “emotional”, at least from the renderings onwards. But this endless pursuit of service-oriented architecture risks turning sterile. An effective space isn’t necessarily a servile one: sometimes it’s an interlocutor. A counterpart with an opinion of its own, inviting us to experience different forms of living. Think of the staircases at MAXXI in Rome, or the loft craze that reshaped the entire SoHo district in Manhattan. Serviceable spaces? Hardly. Useful spaces? Absolutely. A building can force us to imagine different solutions, and that, too, can be its value.

Friction as a resource

A corridor that’s too narrow, a shadow that always falls in the wrong place, a material that ages faster than expected: annoyances? Perhaps. But also stimuli. Because friction isn’t just discomfort: it’s the resistance that pushes us to move, to change direction, to invent new solutions. Living is always a negotiation: if we want oak flooring, we know it will inevitably bear the marks of time. There’s no way around it: natural materials absorb the traces of daily life.

Against the illusion of “tailor-made”

We live in the age of extreme personalisation, but space doesn’t always need to follow the same logic. The illusion of the “perfectly customised” risks reducing architecture to nothing more than an application of comfort. An office that doesn’t coddle us at every turn can instead become a training ground for resilience, a catalyst for confrontation, fertile ground for the kind of conflict that sparks new ideas.

This is not about giving up on function, but about opening up to creative tension. Accepting that space doesn’t fully belong to us,  that it’s something we must dialogue with, even clash with, means restoring its dignity and depth. Because it’s from confrontation that the most radical transformations are born.


The map is not the territory… but it helps

Gregory Bateson, father of systems thinking, once said: “the map is not the territory.” And yet, without maps, we get lost. Even if it doesn’t coincide with reality, a map, by definition, is what allows us to read it, interpret it, and move within it with awareness. At Altis, our work is not just about designing aesthetically pleasing offices. It’s about building tools that help people navigate an increasingly complex space, made up of people, behaviours, rules, budgets, emotions…

“Consult–Design–Deliver”: the Altis step-by-step method. A method that doesn’t stop at “the project,” but accompanies the client from listening all the way to delivery, with one clear belief: if you truly want to transform a workplace, a rendering alone won’t cut it. You need intelligent, accessible, rigorous mapping.

Systems thinking: first understand how it works, then decide what to do

Every workplace is a living ecosystem. There is no such thing as isolated change: shift the layout and the flows will change; change the flows and behaviours will change; change behaviours and performance, costs and even company culture will shift. That’s the domino effect of contemporary work. That’s why we always begin with a systemic reading. Asking only “how many square metres do you need?” is reductive, epistemologically inaccurate, as Bateson himself might put it.

Phase 1: CONSULT — Observing the territory

The Consult phase is our exploration of the territory, where we gather data. Kick-off and Needs Analysis frame the challenges and opportunities. The Occupancy Study tells us who uses what, when, and how. With Rapid Prototyping, we test small-scale solutions to validate large-scale ones. And with the Building Analysis & Test-Fit we understand what is truly feasible, respecting every technical and regulatory constraint. It all converges into the Business Case, not the usual document, but a compass: it shows where it makes sense to invest, where to cut back, and how to distribute resources intelligently.

Phase 2: DESIGN — Drawing the map, shaping behaviours

Design is not about making a space “beautiful”: it’s about nudging desired behaviours. Concept Design translates values and objectives into concrete guidelines. Design Development refines those choices, while Technical Design makes them ready for construction. Furniture isn’t scenery: it’s a functional tool that guides everyday practices. In parallel, Progressive Budgeting makes the cost evolution transparent: no final shocks, just progressively measured choices. Finally, the Contract clearly defines agreements: budget, timing, responsibilities. At this point the map is ready, detailed and operational: not a utopia, but a working document balancing aesthetics, function, and economic sustainability.

Phase 3: DELIVER — From construction to people (with constant control)

Deliver is the phase where the map guides the building of the new territory. Here it’s not enough to “build well”: continuous monitoring and the ability to manage complexity are essential. Permits, procurement, safety, construction, move logistics: every step is tracked with progressive cost control, allowing immediate intervention in case of deviations. And then there’s the often-overlooked issue: Change Management. Because spaces don’t change anything if people don’t inhabit them differently. Communicating, guiding, listening: these are design levers just as much as a partition wall or a height-adjustable desk.

Does it work? The data says yes.

The Altis method works because it breaks the traditional “silo” model: consultants handing things over to designers, who hand them over to procurement, who then pass them on to the general contractor. Each handover wastes time, information, and control. We unify everything in an end-to-end process, where the data gathered during analysis remains alive until final delivery. The result is measurable: timelines reduced by up to 25%, budgets respected, fewer risks. But above all, projects that make sense not only on paper, but in the daily life of the people who inhabit them.

The Altis method was created to guide complexity: listening, shaping, testing, delivering. One step at a time, with people at the centre. If you want to see our map applied to your own territory, write to us at: [email protected]


Architects for summers: 5 masters to pack for your lazy days

Some pack romance novels. Others go for thrillers or crossword puzzles. We packed five architects. No technical manuals, we promise. Just a bit of forma mentis to slip in between your beach towel and SPF 50. Zaha Hadid, Frank Lloyd Wright, Renzo Piano, Tadao Ando and Bjarke Ingels: they may not sound like a summer band, but in their own way, each of them has reimagined how we live and shape space. After all, isn’t summer a kind of life sketch with fewer constraints and more natural light?

Zaha Hadid: getting it wrong, beautifully

No ruler. No symmetry. Just curves, fluid tensions, and a touch of creative chaos. Zaha Hadid taught us that you can be radical and glamorous, off-balance and monumental. Her buildings seem to surf the asphalt, driven by a visionary stubbornness that bent concrete, software and prejudice alike. Here’s your takeaway: imperfection can be a signature. And every sharp corner might be hiding a brilliant idea.

Frank Lloyd Wright: making room for nature

The waterfall house, the floor that “follows” the landscape, the vanishing walls. Wright didn’t build on nature, but with it. He designed the first truly modern home and let it breathe in the woods. Because the environment isn’t a backdrop. It’s a co-star. Ignore it, and sooner or later it’ll come knocking, even on your energy bill.

Renzo Piano: balance, modularity and patience

The man who put wheels on museums (Pompidou) and lightness into concrete (Centro Botín). Renzo Piano is the master of the invisible detail, of technology that hides in plain sight, of architecture as poetic engineering. As he shows us, the perfect design is the one that looks effortless, but took twenty-five prototypes to get right.

Tadao Ando: silence in reinforced concrete

Former boxer, self-taught architect, minimalist poet. Tadao Ando sculpts light more than he builds structures. He gave concrete a sense of spirituality, creating temples of emptiness and calm. Let’s not beat around the bush: sometimes, subtracting is the only way to bring out the essence. (And yes, that goes for silencing your notifications too.)

Bjarke Ingels: the LEGO-loving starchitect

An artificial mountain, a ski slope on a residential block, a panda-shaped masterplan, nothing’s too far-fetched for BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). Ingels blends ecology, humour and marketing without blinking. He knows the future is built with leisure in mind. After all, if sustainability isn’t fun, it won’t stick. And a touch of humour is often the secret ingredient in any great design.

In the end, we all know: architecture is everywhere. Even under your beach umbrella, somewhere between a granita, a sandcastle and a sideways thought. And these five masters remind us that design isn’t (only) about building. It’s about choosing how we want to live, even in August.


What your Office Does When Everyone’s on Holiday

The shocking news? No, it doesn’t launch into guided meditation sessions. But it might just teach you something. 

I hear the echo. The fridge is empty. The access badge no longer beeps. The coffee machine has stopped making those familiar noises. But I’m still here. Watching the sunlight sketch geometries across empty desks. Keeping an eye on the plants, real and fake. Wondering: why was I designed for full capacity, when no one thought about the empty times?

Measuring absence to design for presence

Every August, the same scene unfolds: empty offices, abandoned meeting rooms, square metres left unused. But hold on, this isn’t a glitch, it’s an opportunity. Periods of underuse are a key indicator, and if you know where to look, they reveal exactly how your space (doesn’t) work. 

Who’s using what? When? For how long? And most importantly: why do some areas stay deserted even when the office is full? Monitoring space usage — flows, peaks, dwell times, activity mapping — lets you move from “it feels like” to “we know for sure”. And it’s often the quiet of the off-season that gives you the clearest view. 

In these cases, data analysis isn’t about justifying a choice already made, it’s about guiding the next one. It helps you see where to invest, where to reallocate resources, where less space is enough (and where better space is needed). Because office ROI isn’t just about how many people work there, it’s about how much value the space can generate even when no one’s around.

A space that works even when it isn’t needed

A good design listens. It embraces fluctuations, anticipates absence, creates value even in silence. That’s where adaptive design comes into play: movable furniture, reconfigurable environments. Designing with downtime in mind — those moments when space slows down and shifts — is a form of operational intelligence. It’s the most practical way to make sure your office stays truly alive. 

A well-designed office isn’t just a container for people. It’s an elastic system, able to respond in every mode: peak, average, low. And even low-low, like in August. It’s exactly when everything stops that a space shows its true nature. If it stays flexible, welcoming, and coherent — even with just five people inside (as if they were beta testers) — then you know you’ve made it work. And if you’re still wondering, Altis is here for you. Write to us at [email protected]


Out of office: tips for a clean digital detox

You said, “I’m off on holiday.” You set your out-of-office. You downloaded three books onto your Kindle. And yet, there you are: one eye on the sunset, the other on your notifications. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It happens to many of us. Because it’s not just about switching off your phone, it’s about powering down an entire culture. We explored this summer paradox with Nicoletta Brancaccio, Architect and Head of Research at Altis, who helped us understand why disconnecting is so difficult, and how both mental and physical space can make it easier. 

Spoiler: we don’t have magic potions or moral lectures. Just a closer look at the patterns that keep us glued to the screen… and how to spot them when the opportunity arises.

The brain doesn’t like stopping

Switching off takes effort, it goes against the way we’re wired. Our brains crave constant stimulation and notifications: each one a micro-reward, a hit of instant dopamine. Turning everything off is like cutting off the oxygen supply to a deeply ingrained habit. But there’s more. As Nicoletta points out: “Disconnecting doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means creating the conditions to process something new. It’s an active pause, not a passive one.” In other words, detox isn’t about halting, it’s about shifting gears. It’s when lateral thinking kicks in: creative solutions that emerge when we break free from our usual patterns. No wonder the best ideas come during a walk or under a beach umbrella, it’s all about timing.

When disruption is a good thing

Space can help us switch off, but it can also make it harder. The truth, says Nicoletta, is that “we don’t need to turn off the Wi-Fi. We need to turn on curiosity. And sometimes, to do that, you need to disrupt. Not by creating discomfort, but by breaking the pattern, surprising people.” That’s when a gap opens up: a new kind of attention is born, an unexpected emotion emerges. “Disruption isn’t a glitch, it’s a generative lever.” Spaces that are too symmetrical, monotonous, or predictable end up dulling us. Changing light, non-orthogonal geometry, or a corridor that splits unexpectedly: these are the elements that can reawaken us. But designing them takes intention: fewer Instagrammable furnishings, more multisensory languages that gently nudge our attention.

Emptiness isn’t wasted time, it’s fertile ground

To truly regenerate, you need to cross a threshold. And that threshold is made of boredom, silence, emptiness.” Nicoletta reminds us of something counterintuitive: idle moments are essential. They’re a transitional space where the brain stops reacting and starts reorganising — thoughts, memories, emotions. A time that doesn’t produce immediately, but prepares the ground. The problem? No one teaches us this. For it to happen, we need to slow down, but more importantly, we need to feel allowed to. And that’s where the trap lies: we live in a culture of performance. Even our downtime is hyper-planned: over-planned holidays, mindfulness wake-up calls, and to-do lists full of things to tick off. Emptiness is the time of incubation. But to benefit from it, we have to welcome it.

We’re not suggesting you throw your smartphone out the window (tempting as that may be). You don’t need to disappear, you just need to know where to begin again. Detox isn’t just a break from Wi-Fi or a challenge to see who can last longest without opening WhatsApp. It’s a “form of applied clarity”: one that’s physical and relational. “Every action starts with intention. Even empathy is an intentional activation.” That’s why we need to design spaces that don’t just host us, they listen to us. Because in the end, we are natural beings. And as Nicoletta reminds us: “Nature is the highest form of intelligent imperfection.” Maybe it’s time to take our cue from her. And perhaps start small: like finishing this article, and going out to enjoy that sunset, for real.


In Praise of Emptiness

We live in a world of full. Full optional, full time, fully booked. But is this really an achievement or a subtle kind of condemnation? In our collective obsession with filling every centimetre, physical or mental, we’ve forgotten what it means to leave space. Yet emptiness isn’t a design flaw: it’s a conscious choice.

In architecture, emptiness is the pause that allows the eye to move, the body to breathe, and the mind to think. Outside of architecture, emptiness is the condition of possibility for anything to exist. Think of music: without rests and silences, there would be no melodies, only indistinct cacophonies.

And yes, we know: this isn’t the classic article you skim between one meeting and the next. This is more of an invitation. In the next few paragraphs, we’ll walk together through this undefined space with four different insights – from art to philosophy, music to the sense of care – to discover that emptiness, perhaps, is fuller than we imagine. As Isabella Ducoli, Head of Design at Altis, says: “In architecture, emptiness is not absence: it’s possibility. It’s the only space you don’t have to fill, but that asks to be traversed.

1. Rachel Whiteread: sculpting the invisible

Rachel Whiteread, a British artist, has quite literally transformed emptiness into matter. Her works are casts of empty spaces: she fills with resin or concrete the places that usually remain invisible – the inside of a house, a bathtub, a bookshelf – giving us back their negative space as sculpture. As if to say that emptiness is a reversed fullness. A fullness that speaks of who was there, what it contained, of entire lives moving within those volumes. Because without emptiness, no space would ever truly be habitable: we couldn’t cross it, live in it, or act within it.

2. Gordon Matta-Clark: cutting to reveal

Then there is Gordon Matta-Clark, the American architect and artist of the Seventies, famous for his radical cuts into abandoned buildings. He would slice through walls to reveal their interior, creating huge architectural wounds that became new spaces of light and experience. For Matta-Clark, emptiness was a political gesture: it revealed what was inside, laying bare the essence of things,  and of ourselves. As Isabella Ducoli comments: “Emptiness is an active field. It’s what happens when you remove the superfluous and leave only space for what matters.

3. John Cage: the sound of silence

But you don’t need to get your hands dirty with concrete or wield a circular saw to understand emptiness. John Cage, an American composer, taught us that silence is also full of sound. In 1952 he composed 4’33”, a piece where the performer plays no notes. Four minutes and thirty-three seconds of apparent silence in which, in reality, you hear everything: coughing, chairs creaking, rain on the roof, the breathing of those in the room. Cage reminds us that emptiness is always full of something, you just need to know how to listen.

4. The Altis perspective: emptiness as care

If everything around us is oversaturated, emptiness becomes a radical act of care. Emptiness as digital detox, as mental space, as a design choice that renounces the superfluous to leave what truly matters: air, light, breath. It’s the square between buildings, not just an urban interstice but a place of encounter and sociality. It’s the clearing in a sacred forest which, in Shinto traditions, becomes a frame for the divine, a sacred space precisely because it is empty. It’s the Zen garden, offering nothing superfluous except its own essentiality, becoming a metaphor for contemplation and meditation.

To speak of emptiness as care means recognising we don’t need to fill every space to make it exist. On the contrary, emptiness is a reservoir of possibility, the field of all potential transformation. And above all, as Isabella tells us: “Emptiness is the last remaining luxury: a space you don’t need to justify, that exists to help you exist better.