Oikos Venezia: Combining Italian craftsmanship with innovation

Tell us about the Oikos story so far.  
Oikos products are of high architectural value and intricate craftsmanship with industrial production efficiency.

Oikos Venezia has been designing and manufacturing entrance doors for more than 30 years at its plant in Venice. Founded in 1990, the company is known on the national and international market as a leader in the production of high-end doors. In 2005 Synua was born, the first line of large-sized armoured doors with vertical pivots and coplanar with the wall. The current six Oikos products are Evolution, Tekno, Synua, Project, Vela, and Nova.

Oikos Atelier Dubai was inaugurated, on march 14, the company’s very first single-brand showroom. This is an exhibition area that was already set up in the Gruaro headquarters and has been refurbished inside The Opus tower, one of the most recent and iconic projects by Zaha Hadid Architects.

Elaborate on Oikos’ design aesthetic and the philosophy driving the brand. 
When Oikos decided to change the pay-off from ‘customised armoured doors’ to ‘entrance architecture’, the intention was clear: bring the brand closer to the world of architecture. The dialogue with designers, architects, and all the figures that revolve around this sector, has certainly contributed to bringing the values of aesthetic refinement and in general, the values of design closer to Oikos.

Regarding the philosophy of Oikos, the main focus is definitely on its ability to mix “hand-made” elements (pure craftsmanship) with industrial organisation. This peculiarity makes it able to create unique and advanced products, born from continuous and fruitful research of innovation both in tradition and in artistic expression.

‘Explore, believe, create’ is the mood and ethos which draws international designers and planners to us, seeking integrated solutions with a high aesthetic impact. Oikos, for the first time in the world, has been able to give the entrance a well-deserved architectural value.

How do Oikos creations marry traditional Italian craftsmanship, technology and innovation? Why are your products unique from others? 
To answer this question, one cannot help but explain the concept that underlines all the work that Oikos carries out every day: “arsenality”. The Arsenal of Venice, to which the company refers, was the working secret of the Venetian naval force in which the ships that transformed Venice into a world power were manufactured. Oikos reclaims the “Arsenal” and the underlying concept, namely craftsmanship merging with industry, making this productive fusion available to all those involved in design so that they can create entrance architecture and believe that every imagined solution is feasible.

Obviously, the market for entrance doors is also evolving, and Oikos wants to progress in this sector. Thus, over time, Oikos’ entrance architecture has been made fully avant-garde, thanks to new ways of conceiving the entrance space and the inclusion of technological objects, such as RFID or fingerprint readers.

Maintaining the Venetian arsenal by offering innovative and cutting-edge products is the secret of Oikos’ success and longevity.

Oikos opened its first single-brand showroom in Dubai in March at The Opus. What was the inspiration behind its creation?
When the company was faced with the choice of deciding which territory would be the most suitable to showcase its production quality to a very wide audience, Oikos promptly opted for the Gulf market, in particular Dubai.  Dubai is the ‘capital of luxury’, which directly reflects Oikos’s architectural image. The emirate is the perfect place to showcase the “arsenality” and aesthetics of Oikos’ production to a public familiar with luxury living.

Oikos has defined the Dubai showroom as an ‘atelier’  — a space dedicated to the artist’s craft, which is at the same time a workshop and a museum, a factory and a living room. It’s a multi-purpose place where works of art are created, but also where clients, collectors, travellers and other artists do meet. In this space, as in an atelier, we tell you about our projects and, at the same time, invite you to create new possible interpretations of entrance architectures.

What are the top trends in ‘entrances’? 
Oikos focuses above all on the customisation of entrance architecture, so the demands are very different, but one trend, in particular, that can be seen nowadays is the quest for verticality and grandeur. The trend is seeing doors becoming increasingly taller and more mammoth. Oikos has been able to respond satisfactorily to these trends by coming up with a line that invites you to look upwards, towards the sky, thus creating new vertical horizons in the field of entrance architecture: the Skydoors line.

What are the plans Oikos has in the pipeline for the near future? 
Oikos intends to expand strongly in the Gulf market, especially given the success of the atelier in Dubai, while continuing to innovate its products that can best meet the new demands coming from both trusted and new customers. A door has opened wide for Oikos in the Gulf market: from Venice to Dubai in order to fly to every corner of the world. This is the intent that animates the company’s choice to plant the Italian flag in one of the most flourishing world markets today, renewing the concept of a new “Renaissance”.