Description

With a design both elegant and rational, Mario Cucinella has created a low-energy office building in keeping with the times for the Italian lighting manufacturer iGuzzini Illuminazione. The administrative headquarters is a model of environmental awareness with respect to resources and offers staff much visual and thermal comfort. The interplay of open work levels arranged around a light-flooded atrium and the transparent façades, unusual for Italy, ensure not only optimal working conditions but also an unmistakable identity.

The unadorned built volume, erected in the course of a large-scale restructuring of the entire production site, is situated in an industrial district at the edge of Recanati, a mountain town on the Italian coast of the Adriatic. Its distinctive roof structure, with the eaves jutting out more than six metres, is supported by a slender, graceful steel construction. It is fitted with aluminium louvres so that it can shade the fully transparent southern façade.

An unspectacular, rather conventional office concept reflects the company’s hierarchical structure. The spacious private offices of the management are located on the uppermost floor, which also benefits from a terrace running round it. The three lower floors house a mixture of cell-like offices and team offices for administrative staff and the sales department. Meetings with clients take place on the ground floor, where there are a variety of meeting rooms.

The principal design element in the interior of the building is the centrally situated atrium, which also serves as the entrance hall. The space creates both a visual and a physical link between the four floors of offices.

A garden planted with bamboo reminiscent of Japanese gardens and the twelve skylights create a light and pleasant atmosphere. In order to exploit the daylight to the maximum even on the ground floor, the steel stairway in­corporates glass treads.

The design for the climate control system was developed through extensive simulations and light studies; it is convincing in its simplicity, being based on maximised use of daylight and effective natural ventilation and cooling of the office areas. It consists of a variety of carefully coordinated active and passive measures. The overhanging roof structure with hanging vertically oriented “eaves” and the atrium with its distinctive skylights are not just design elements, but important components of the climate control system. The atrium takes on a dual function: having twelve skylights, it brings daylight into the interior of the building and serves as a ventilation shaft, a component of the natural ventilation concept based on cross-drafts. The form of the skylights is such that on hot, windless days, the chimney effect is intensified. Waste air is drawn off from the offices and fresh air is allowed to flow in via tiltable vanes in the parapet and in the upper parts of the windows. Using nocturnal ventilation, the diurnal/nocturnal temperature differential in summer is exploited for cooling the offices. Raw concrete ceilings and solid internal walls function as thermal masses. In combination with consistent shading, comfortable temperatures at the workplace can be attained during the greater part of the year. Peak temperature loads are met by additional, supporting air-conditioning, in the form of fan coil units – devices to cool recirculated air – in the parapet area.

The computer simulations for the completely transparent south façade yielded the expected results of 100% shade required in summer, while for the transitional periods, 80% is sufficient. Therefore the horizontal louvres in the area that shades the façade were attached with a clearance of 400 mm and the vertical ones with a clearance of 500 mm. Interior venetian blinds provide individual control of the light coming in and prevent glare at computer workplaces. An additional horizontal light shelf that deflects daylight from the ceilings and into the building enables it to penetrate deep into the interior and ensures even distribution of light intensity for those workplaces near the windows. A good daylight quotient could be achieved for all areas of the building; the atrium lit from above contributes significantly to this. The prognostic of energy consumption up to 70% less than that of a conventional building will be verified by a long-term study carried out in the context of a research project.

As corporate architecture, the building embodies the image that the lighting manufacturers iGuzzini chose for themselves, an image based on high-quality details, environmentally aware consumption of resources and a humane workplace design.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.