Design competition for a manufacturing plant in Florence

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Permeable to natural light and the land, the building unveils its character and increases interactions of its community.
It reconstructs the interrupted landscape, and projects this scenario into the future, making use of the site’s environmental potential to reach resources for its livelihood.
Specifically, the building makes use of passive systems and devices to maximize energy efficiency and collaborates with the mass and energy of the place: it stores and releases heat due to the high thermal capacity of the materials used.
All rooms relate to a patio or garden, so that daylight and ventilation permeates the work spaces, through skylights in the roof. Proper lighting of the rooms and workings is ensured by a system of opaque or filtering curtains and a system of modulating artificial light according to the natural light outside.
The indoor plaza is the bioclimatic greenhouse that opens to the winds and stores heat, as well as the device that does not alter the compositional axiality of the settlement and allows physical connections and visual connections.
Special scattered pipes throughout the project area exchange with the subsoil and, near the entrance plaza, and become ventilation chimneys that filter and feed clean air into the building.

SUSTAINABILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BUILDING

1.   Air treatment unit with high-efficiency heat recovery
2.   Outside air flow rates according to ASHRAE 62.1.2010 adjusted to actual occupancy
3.   Equipment with reduced potable water flow rates
4.   Use of materials with high recycled content and low emissivity
5.   Dimming of artificial versus natural light and maximization of natural light inputs
6.   Recovery and reuse of meteoric water
7.   High visual and thermal comfort
8.   Energy produced from renewable sources
9.   Energy-efficient exterior envelope
10. Use of passive sustainability strategies

CERTIFICATION

Rating system: LEED® BD+C v4: New construction and major renovation
Certification level: LEED® Platinum

ACTIVITIES

Feasibility analysis and pre-assessment

Valutazione preliminare della sostenibilità globale dell’intervento: scelta del miglior rating di certificazione LEED® da applicare, dei crediti perseguibili e valutazione del conseguente livello di certificazione raggiungibile

LEED® Team Management during the design phase

Indicazioni e coordinamento del team di progetto verso la scelta di caratteristiche progettuali, materiali e apparecchiature in conformità ai requisiti del protocollo LEED®

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.

Thermal comfort

In order to ensure the optimal conditions of thermal-hygrometric comfort and indoor air quality, it is necessary to ensure conditions conforming to at least class B according to ISO 7730:2005 in terms of PMV (Expected Mean Rating) and PPD (Expected Percentage Dissatisfied).
A calculation report was prepared showing that the design of the building-plant system was done taking into account all the parameters affecting comfort. This allowed to achieve the PMV and PPD values required to achieve class B according to ISO 7730:2005.

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.

PROJECT TEAM