GMZN ACADEMY
Architectural Visualization Courses by GMZNstudio
GMZN brand
GMZN brand
GRUPPO VERGERO - NEW HEADQUARTER
LOCATION: Venaria Reale, Torino, Italy
CLIENTS: Gruppo Vergero
YEAR: 2021
STATUS: Competition - Mention
TEAM: GMZNstudio - Studio FFWD Architettura
Land reuse / paving / green roofing
The space between the ring road and the new buildings, equal to 30 ml wide, corresponds to the highway buffer strip. It consists of a grassed escarpment with the underlying gutter for water collection and a strip of flat land that reaches the outer walls of the new buildings at a lower elevation of about 3.50 m from the road guardrail above.
Usually, this is a waste space with no particular qualities left to the undergrowth, uninviting because of traffic pollution.
Instead, the project proposes its plano-altimetric revisitation as the regulating principle of the entire lot. The space in front of and around the new buildings is shaped with the soil resulting from excavating the foundations at different height levels, according to a modular grid with a square base of about 4m x 4m. These grassed earth modules bordered by retaining walls have different uses according to their position and height: acoustic and visual barrier, outdoor dining and working place in continuity with the offices of the new headquarter, lawn for anti-smog plantings, parking area, company vegetable garden or simple pattern of the outdoor pavement.
Some of these modules may be used as rain drains and lamination basins during significant weather events to serve the entire industrial area.
Some of these excavated soil modules will then "migrate" to the roof of the new industrial building to become vegetable gardens that employees can use, serving the company's zero-mile canteen and tree curtain as environmental compensation for land consumption due to the new development.
All exterior pavements except those for the exclusive use of vehicles for loading/unloading materials are intended with permeable materials, possibly reinforced grass, for more excellent continuity between green spaces and transit spaces and to significantly reduce the impact of the so-called heat island typical of more traditional industrial areas.
Sustainability and flexibility
The company's new headquarter is planned with a reinforced concrete basement on which a structural mesh of Xlam (Mixed Steel-Wood Structure - SMAL) wooden pillars, partitions and floors is supported for the next four floors.
This structural solution, which is lighter than others, in addition to meeting principles of environmental sustainability due to the sourcing of wood from FSC-certified forests, guarantees fast execution and high flexibility in the use of space. Offices and shared spaces can be easily arranged within a 4x4 mt and 4x8 mt structural module. In the part of the building comparing the existing industrial building will be merged stairwells and elevators easily accessible from all floors.
Appropriate technological solutions (external envelope with double-skin façade, geothermal heating and cooling system) compositional and use and disposal of building materials will allow the project to be refined at a later stage according to the Passivhaus and Leed certification protocols
The New Landmark
The highly visible location of the new industrial buildings suggests an intervention of architectural homogenization along the entire built front (industrial building, office building and container area) for a total length of about 290 meters and a height of about 16 meters.
The 'intervention involves the construction on the front facing the ring road of an architectural skin made of microperforated sheet metal panels, slightly convex, directly installed on the perimeter wall of the industrial building and office building. The remaining parts will be applied to a particular metal support structure.
The inclusion of this panelling meets the criteria:
- Thanks to their shape, the decorative wall of micro-perforated panels will be able to reflect in daylight hours the sunlight in a dynamic and iridescent way as well as at night by means of backlighting intervention. A spectacular and long-lasting solution that aims to express best the Vergero Group's corporate brand of solid innovation and adaptation to change
- Sustainability the micro-perforation of the panels will reduce the sun's rays on the fronts of the office building and the industrial building, significantly improving their energy efficiency, especially if the new warehouse is built with a dark-coloured facade finish.
