LEED, #retrofitting and enhancing the #built, with GBPA Architects.
The #Amazon Italia headquarters occupies the former #Tecnimont Building, built in the 1970s to a #design by Claudio Longo and Giulio Ricci.
The project was oriented in combining different "hot" issues of Milanese architectural regeneration: preserving the historical building heritage while upgrading the building towards the most careful #sustainability and #energy efficiency policies.
GBPA has rethought the building starting from its historical "experience" as an innovative #heritage of the Second #Nineteenth century, projecting Palazzo Tecnimont toward an avant-garde #future in functional and spatial terms, without renouncing its original architectural heritage. The result is a design that echoes Longo and Ricci's idea, but with lighter materials and better performing technologies.
Thanks to TEKNE's support in the Local Architect, LEED #Assessment and #Integrated #MEP design phases, the building was reborn with a deep hard #retrofitting that brought the load-bearing structures back into the light and clad them with new systems and a new transparent envelope.
The building is able to limit the #impact on the environment, and is designed with a cultural approach aimed at reducing #energy consumption with use of #renewable sources, reducing water consumption, using materials with particular characteristics and provenance, with attention to the life cycle of the building and components, aiming at the #wellbeing of the occupants and social sustainability.
The systems are designed to ensure maximum energy efficiency and reduce operating expenses. The energy cycle is designed to limit the impact on the environment, with a culturally sensitive approach to reducing consumption and maintenance costs, including through the use of renewable or low-impact sources. In fact, in addition to the new, high-performance external envelope, a mixed system with a cold groundwater condensing heat pump (meeting most of the needs) and air (for the remainder) was chosen.
Followed through all stages of assessment by TEKNE, the building was awarded LEED Platinum certification for its energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable features.
This solved the triple objective of not distorting the original design, now projected toward a more sustainable and technological future, with important savings in terms of site decarbonization and cost containment.
In its substance, the design approach has paid homage to the historical iconicity of the original building, tracing its old forms, but has projected its soul to a more contemporary functionality, bringing it in line with current regulations, both in terms of plant and structural engineering, fire prevention and healthiness of spaces, without distorting its original conception.