DRD Studio is the recording studio and private living environment of Italian composer and producer Dario Faini (Dardust), designed by Ciliegio Esterno in Milan’s Città Studi district. Set within the ordinary fabric of a 1960s mixed-use residential block, the project reclaims an anonymous ground-floor former shop—cramped, repeatedly altered, and visually dominated by an awkward mezzanine—and turns it into a compact “proximity studio” that can operate at professional standards while remaining compatible with neighbours and street life.
The main inspiration is a deliberate reversal of expectations: instead of erasing imperfections to “normalise” the space, the design treats its fractures as the raw material of the transformation. The guiding idea—adding without increasing, fragmenting without disintegrating—builds identity through precise insertions and architectural “sutures,” keeping perceptual continuity while shifting functions, atmospheres, and acoustic performance. This attitude is explicitly linked to kintsugi: repair as a way to reveal and dignify the crack, rather than conceal it.
The first constraints were structural and perceptual: a narrow footprint, a double-height portion that felt unresolved, and a mezzanine that read as a residual storage platform rather than a coherent level. The second set of difficulties was technical: achieving acoustic isolation in a shared building inevitably reduces natural light and demands thickness, decoupling, and careful detailing at every junction. Rather than treating these limitations as purely negative, the project turns them into drivers for spatial clarity and crafted interior light.
Construction techniques follow a “box-within-a-box” logic to reduce sound transmission: independent partitions, suspended ceilings, and floating floors form a decoupled envelope. Within this protective shell, material choices support both warmth and precision. Oak joinery brings a domestic register to the workspace, while translucent honeycomb Bencore® panels—backlit and integrated into sliding elements—introduce depth, softness, and a controlled glow. Lighting is designed as an internal material: integrated slots, backlit surfaces, and calibrated spot lighting compensate for reduced daylight and create a calm, inhabitable ambience suited to long creative sessions.
Spatially, the programme is reorganised across two levels while retaining the basic split. At street level, the former retail area becomes a continuous sequence articulated into two complementary rooms: a compact, intimate control room centred on the production desk, and a taller live room that exploits the double height to host instruments, recording, and small performances. Above, the mezzanine is re-authored as a support suite with a small guest room and an informal lounge/work area—bridging studio operations and domestic life, and allowing collaboration without compromising the core acoustic spaces.
A key architectural device is the full-height bookcase in the live room: a vertical element that reconnects ground floor and mezzanine, “stitches” the double-height void, and becomes a luminous backdrop. Alongside other hybrid pieces—between furniture and architecture—it activates leftover areas (such as the space beneath the metal staircase) with integrated functions and light, reinforcing the project’s central stance: constraints can be transformed into character, and an ordinary shell can become a measured place where work, rest, and sound-making coexist.
