LEED^® Gold office building in Milan

PROJECT DESCRIPTION.

Diamond Tower is a LEED® certified office building and is the Italy headquarters of BNP-Paribas Group. Located in Garibaldi/Porta Nuova district in Milan, it has 30 floors, with a total area of about 38,000 square meters.
The design was developed around the concept of “sustainability.” The ‘key objective was to significantly reduce the building’s energy consumption, which toghether with the other criteria adopted, earned it the LEED® GOLD certification. Attention to the well-being of the occupants and the desire to offer a productive and efficient LEED®certified office building is the goal that led to the selection of the 2009 LEED® Commercial Interior rating.

LEED® CERTIFIED OFFICE BUILDING SUSTAINABILITY FEATURES.

1.   Air handling units with high-efficiency heat recovery.
2.   Outdoor air flow rates according to Ashrae 62.1.2007 adjusted to actual occupancy
3.   Sanitary equipment with reduced potable water flow rate
4.   Use of materials with high recycled content and low emissivity
5.   LED lighting fixtures
6.   Maximization of natural light inputs
7.   Use of regionally sourced materials
8.   Proximity to public services and transportation
9.   High-efficiency geothermal heat pump
10. Mobile shading systems on the glazing facade

CERTIFICATION

Rating system: LEED® 2009 Commercial Interiors
Certification level: 68/110 points, LEED® Gold

Below, for each category, the percentage contribution to the total certification score. Also to the side, the score achieved against the total score that can be acquired for each category.

ACTIVITIES

Feasibility analysis and pre-assessment

Preliminary assessment of the overall sustainability of the project: selection of the best LEED® certification rating and evaluation of the resulting attainable certification level.

LEED® Team Management during the design phase.

Project team management activities through:
– Guidance on selection of materials and equipment in accordance with LEED® requirements.
– Approval of project documentation in accordance with LEED® requirements.
– Management of the project on LEED®online

LEED® Team Management during the construction phase

Construction team management activities through:
– LEED® approval of materials and equipment
– Management for the implementation of construction plans
– Project management on LEED®online portal

Fundamental and enhcanced commissioning

Commissioning is an activity whose primary purpose is to ensure that buildings and facilities are designed, constructed and delivered according to the client’s requirements. The benefits of the process, if implemented on time, are:
– increases in occupant productivity
– containment of construction costs
– shorter plant commissioning times
Advanced commissioning, added to basic commissioning, involves the preparation of documentation to support subsequent plant management and the implementation of plant testing at 10 months after occupancy.

Energy modelling

energy model activity allows for the comparison of two models of the same building, baseline and proposed, the former built according to Ashrae 90.1 Appendix G and the latter in accordance with the project. The result is a snapshot of the building’s consumption. The comparison between the two models allow to calculate a percentage savings in energy cost.

Daylight modelling

Simulation of daylight in regularly occupied spaces. The higher the percentage of spaces that meet the requirements in terms of daylight contribution, the higher the score that can be obtained.

Measurement and verification plan

This activity involved the drafting of a performance measurement and verification plan that describes the measures to support the monitoring of building consumption: the methods for creating the baseline model according to IPMVP are described, consumption adjustment factors are defined, and corrective measures applicable in cases of significant deviations of actual consumption from the expected baseline consumption are defined.

PROJECT TEAM