NOÏ blends tea culture and pilates inside Milan comic store conversion

In the Moscova district of Milan, a space with a distinctly urban memory is reconfigured into NOÏ, a hybrid environment where a Japanese-inspired tea house coexists with a pilates reformer studio. The project occupies a former comic book store once defined by towering bookshelves. Rather than erasing this past, the design draws directly from it, retaining traces of material wear and spatial proportion as active elements in the new composition.

The intervention operates through layering. The existing architectural shell and the new program overlap in a controlled dialogue, balancing permanence with transformation. Surfaces are left intentionally imperfect. Raw textures, residual marks, and signs of time are preserved and amplified, establishing a spatial identity that is grounded yet contemporary. The program is inserted with restraint, allowing function to emerge without visual excess.

The interior is conceived as a continuous, permeable field. Softened corners and fluid partitions guide movement without imposing rigid boundaries. The absence of fragmentation allows perception to unfold gradually, reinforcing a sense of calm and spatial clarity.

A horizontal datum line runs across the entire space, dividing it into two distinct material conditions. Below, a compact and smooth resin base defines a grounded plane. Above, coarse lime plaster interacts with light, transparency, and layered screens. This juxtaposition between density and lightness generates a suspended atmosphere, where solidity and permeability coexist.

At the entrance, the bar counter becomes both visual anchor and conceptual synthesis. Its composition integrates a resin and lime finished base, a central raw edged marble block, and a crafted wooden volume containing display elements. This single gesture condenses the project’s material language and spatial logic.

Further inside, a large communal table in raw marble occupies the center of the room. Formed from three stacked volumes, it reads as both furniture and sculpture. The presence of mismatched stools introduces a subtle disruption, softening the monolithic quality of the table and encouraging informal use.

Beyond the bar, a glass partition reveals the project’s second function. The pilates studio is accessed through a pivoting panel concealed within a wooden architectural element that cuts diagonally across the plan. This insertion operates as a spatial device, generating sequences, framing views, and redefining circulation.

The transition between the two programs is marked by a corridor entirely finished in deep red. Walls, ceiling, and floor dissolve into a single chromatic field, transforming movement into an immersive experience. The passage becomes a moment of compression and intensity before opening into the quieter space of the studio.

Within the pilates room, the material palette remains consistent with the tea house, reinforcing a unified identity. Existing structural elements, including an exposed granite column and an arched opening, are left visible. These features anchor the new intervention within the original building, maintaining continuity across time.

NOÏ is conceived as a coherent organism where architecture, material, and program operate through calibrated contrast. Raw and refined, existing and new, opacity and transparency are held in balance. The project avoids spectacle, instead constructing an atmosphere through precision and restraint.

The result is a space that does not impose itself but unfolds gradually. It accommodates, frames, and suggests. In doing so, it allows architecture to act not as a statement, but as a medium through which memory and use are continuously renegotiated.

Project Credit

Project name: NOÏ
Design firm: AIM Studio / @aim.studio
Creative Director: Claudio Tognacca / @claudiotognacca
Location: Milan, Italy
Year: 2025
Area: 135 sqm
Photo: Francesca Iovene / @francescaiovene